Prompt 2 - First Time In Your Life

In another installment of 'What did I do in that writing class,' I'll share the second prompt and what I wrote that day. For our second prompt, we were asked to write about the first time we experienced something in our lives. I was initially tempted to write about what it's like to live under the pseudo-authoritarian regime of a thin-skinned, mysogynistic megalomaniac and Grade A pathological liar but that seemed too fantastical, too unbelievable and this was a course in non-fiction writing (and yet here we are in Trumplandia, but I digress). So I went with something I know - on becoming a dad for the first time:

I became a father for the first time 27 years ago. I was young, some would argue that we were too young to become parents. We were barely out from under our own parents' roofs. The thought of becoming a father, though, was mostly exhilarating, until the day of our daughter's birth. It suddenly became an all-consuming terror. As my wife labored to deliver our daughter that day, I was filled with an overwhelming paralyzing fear, with questions assaulting me at every moment. The pain I was feeling had to be on par with the pain that gripped my wife with each contraction. It wasn't. But doubt plagued me with each of those contractions. How could I care and provide for this little girl who was about to be born when previously one of the most pressing questions in my life had been collar up or down? How would I handle this? How was I going to care for her needs?

Once she arrived, the nurse placed my daughter into my trembling arms. I took in a long, deep breath and looked into her tiny eyes. I, for better or worse, was one of the first people she was seeing. I wanted her to know she was in good hands. As I looked into her eyes with a growing sense of awe, something in me snapped me into our new reality. I touched her little hand and said, "Hi. I'm your dad. And we're going to figure this out all together." That's been my unspoken motto as a dad ever since. 27 years later and two more children, I'd like to think I've figured a few things out about being a dad. It's still a work in progress.

I don't think I've ever been more scared of anything in my life than I was the day I became a dad for the first time. Writing about it a few weeks ago brought back a flood of feelings - fear, awe, excitement, terror, joy. The funny thing is that if I had the chance to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing.

#storieseverywhere

Into The Cap

The Cap

Evidence of Russian handiwork
from Dad's cap

In the six years since my father died, in each of those successive years my mother has made it clear that she is ready to go. She is, so far, zero for six in her predictions, but this year she's taken things to a new level - think DefCon 4. We've had A LOT of super fun conversations (essentially every other one) about her "going over the rainbow." Spoiler alert - that is not a thinly-veiled reference to "The Wizard of Oz," but it is this year's euphemism for death. She has coupled these 'rainbow' conversations with items that she has decided to unload.

A few days ago, we got a box large enough to comfortably smuggle ship a couple of Bangladeshi sweatshop workers delivered to our home. One of the items included was a hat, a cap really, that my late father wore while he and my mother served in the Moscow Russia Mission for the Church. They were there working for Church Legal, where my dad was focused on ensuring contracts and transactions were fully legal (no small task in Russia where what is legal is, um, how do you say, highly interpretive). Dad would wear a cap to cover his bald dome in those brutal Russian winters. The one Mom sent me was one they had purchased there. The pictures I took of the real one were lame and didn't do it justice, so what I included at the top of the post is one I got from an online Russian hat store (seriously, it's a thing). Anything associated with Russia on the Interwebs makes me all kinds of nervous (e.g. hackers, little Eddie Snowden, sweaty mobsters in a Leningrad flat phishing for your credit card number) so I didn't spend a lot of time on the site trying to find a perfect match for the cap I now own. But I digress...

I tried the cap on and as with all things hats and me, it went horribly wrong. I do not have a head for hats of any kind. If you've seen a picture of me in any hat, you know I'm not lying. It was no different with my dad's cap. It looked as if some cruel prankster had put an infant's cap on the head of Andre the Giant. Suffice to say, I won't be wearing the cap and if I'm being honest, I feel a little sad about that. That cap represents a tangible connection to my father and I don't have a lot of those. I am so very grateful for the memories of him that I have and more importantly for his example and the values that he instilled in me. Those are far more important than any tactile connection. Still, I envisioned myself marching from the misery that is Penn Station to my office in midtown wearing his cap and working to do him proud. That's still important to me, even after all these years.

I thought of that cap and doing my late father proud today as I taught my New Testament Sunday School/Gospel Doctrine class. Teaching from the books of 1 - 3 John, we spoke much of the the simple statement that God is love. We talked about the love God has for us as His children and this familiar verse from 3 John 1:4 struck a chord with me:

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.

God wants what is best for us and He wants us to be happy. My father wanted that for me, my sister, and my brother. That is precisely what I want for my three children. His example and actions taught me that. The fact that my big old head won't fit his cap doesn't change what he taught me. It doesn't change the opportunity for me to choose to be like him each day. That said, I'll keep nearby as a reminder.

Fatherhood

These three...

Fatherhood.

There are very few words that inspire moments of sheer terror in the mind of a man like that word - fatherhood. The word is defined as the state of having one or more children. Whether it's one child or nine (not nineteen, have we learned nothing from the freak show that is The Duggars?), becoming a father is an extended ride on the scariest, terror-inducing, exciting and most fun roller coaster on the planet.

Fatherhood is a cacophony of awesome.
Fatherhood is moment after moment of heart-bursting pride.
Fatherhood is moments of gut-wrenching pain, mostly the pain you wish you could absorb for your children.
Fatherhood is messy - countless ties ruined by projectile vomiting, shirts stretched wildly when acting as the shoulder to cry on, knees on pants torn up sliding to stop someone from hurting himself.
Fatherhood is anxiety-inducing. Seriously, why is she dating that boy? Why did the state issue him a drivers license?
Fatherhood is joy, sheer joy. Dancing with your daughter at her wedding. Sitting and cheering with your daughter in the cheap seats at an MLB game. Watching your son walking down a jetway to serve his fellow man for two years.
Fatherhood, while it may spark moments of terror, is, in a word, AWESOME.

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

William Shakespeare

You're welcome to argue just how wise I am but I can tell you this. It has been the joy of my life to get to be father to my three children. I'm glad I know them. To be their father is the highest honor I will ever receive. Other than being good to their mother, nothing else matters. Nothing.

Happy Fathers Day