I’m becoming a father.
A Dad.
Daddy.
I never could have
anticipated the roller coaster of emotions I would experience when this day
finally arrived. When Judy pounced on me
that early morning shoving the urine soaked “stick of knowledge” in my face, I
was excited. I was bleary-eyed and half-conscious, but I was excited.
A new life – one that
her and I had caused. What?
What sort of magic is
that?
I spent the rest of
that day on a barely contained emotional high. I am becoming a father. I kept
telling myself that over and over again. I couldn’t believe it. Nothing ever
felt so surreal. So make believe.
In the following days,
the ephemeral excitement settled into an abiding satisfaction. I was content
with this new vocation. I was looking forward to becoming a father.
Then something strange
happened.
About a week after
Judy’s heartfelt early morning raid, I was walking from the university library
over to our car and I was struck by a noticeably different version of the previously
rehearsed celebration of fatherhood. I thought those same words, but the tone
in which I heard them was more sober.
“Oh shit…..I’m going
to be a dad.”
I’m not sure if any of
you other first time dads have had a similar experience, but for me it was a
stop-in-your-tracks kind of thing. In that moment, I started to realize some of
the multivalent, inescapable entailments of fatherhood.
For one thing, Judy
and I qua Judy-and-I was coming to an
end. The carefree explorations of LA on a lazy Saturday. The spur of the moment
drives down to San Diego for a quick overnight vacation. I began to realize
that the admittedly narcissist do-what-we-please-when-we-please approach to life
that I preferred was going to expire. Honestly,
I didn’t know how to feel about that.
I turned out that I
was upset for a bit.
I know. I know. How could I be upset that a new life was on
its way into the world? How could I be upset that God had finally chosen to
answer our prayers? How could I be so selfish?
Well. I don’t know. It
just turned out that I was.
And there I stayed;
feeling that disturbance of my life to different degrees for a few weeks.
I’ll note that Judy
was especially sweet to me during this time. She let me feel that frustration
without condemning me. She surrounded me with her faithful love and granted me
the emotional and cognitive space I needed to understand myself.
Yeah…she rocks.
I’m not exactly sure
when those feelings went away. I think I might have just woken up one day and
realized they were gone. Somewhere in
the midst of sleeping and waking I tamed my demons.
Replacing that feeling
of loss was a quiet, almost indiscernible call.
This was less of a
“writing on the wall” experience and more of “wind whispering” phenomenon. I
couldn’t quite tell at first what I had started to know in that moment, but I
knew it was big. The call I heard was attempting to augment the story of my
life. I liked that feeling. It felt important and I wanted more.
In the following
weeks, as I ruminated on that experience of calling, I began to understand that
the call was to fatherhood.
Fatherhood.
This reality is more
than a product of potential biological causality. More along the lines of exemplifying a
certain relation to another human person. A relation that bears certain
attributes. Attributes that I know are
not – to one degree or another – already dispositions of mine.
I freaked out about
that for a few days. Again, cue Judy’s patience and reassurance.
But then I realized
something. Something about calling.
When God calls us to
something, he anticipates a period of becoming.
Progressive advancement into our new
vocation.
No matter how much I
want it, fatherhood cannot be actualized overnight. The various attributes that
aggregately produce fatherhood are progressively nurtured into a soul. My soul.
These cannot be coerced. They are learned.
This is the journey of
fatherhood. A journey of understanding and becoming. A wonderful journey. A never-ending
journey.
And….here we go.
…
I’m becoming a father.
