(Re)Born
In the maelstrom of the maternity ward it’s easy to lose one’s thoughts. The beeps and warbles and the comings and goings of nurses, attending doctors, and other personnel serve to rob you of any quiet moments or time for personal reflection. Whatever quietness remains is threatened by and atmosphere electric with anticipation and excitement and a million disconnected thoughts pinging around inside an overwhelmed mind.
I distinctly remember it each time. The buildup, the tension, the constant motion as the moment ushered near. I remember it more keenly this time because I anticipated it. No, it was more than anticipation, it was the desire for it. As the moment drew near the noise, the beeping, the half dozen voices in the room faded into the ether as background hum and a quietness settled upon me that is difficult to describe. Your entire being becomes focused on a singularity that is the being ushered into the world before your very eyes.
In that moment, more than one soul is created. I suspect the same for mothers though I cannot speak for them. I can, however, vividly recall the moments in my mind. The man you were dies and falls away before you and a new one rises in his place, that child a catalyst that forever alters the makeup of your being. Priorities shift, reasons change and the metamorphosis is instantaneous.
Having a child makes you want to be a better man, a better person. Though we all fall short, myself included (woefully so in some aspects) the desire for it is instilled instantly. It’s as if the universe gives you a clean slate with which to rewrite your history, to begin anew in the catalog of someone else’s mind and the magnitude of it is a incomprehensibly apparent from the moment that you stare into those newly opened eyes.
That rebirth causes you to do things you wouldn’t normally do. It causes you to tear up at your daughter’s first smile, to revert to a babbling fool rolling about the floor and giggling at the silliest of things. You remember blocks and toys and now, all of a sudden, dolls are cool and you couldn’t be bothered by how much an idiot you look to random passersby as you dance to elicit the reward of just one giggle.
And yet, it goes much deeper too. Life’s focus is changed and rearranged and the importance of the things you held so high just yesterday shift and somehow it all falls upon her. She becomes the ‘why’ in your life. That period in which we are the superhero is woefully short and we play that role to the fullest, if we are wise. If not we are left with the pangs of a life rushed past so quickly we never even got to grasp the tendrils of its tenuous threads as they slipped through our fingers.
This second time around, I’m wiser. I know that time is short. I know it will be gone in the blink of an eye and I’ll be looking at a preteen, then a teen, then an adult and with a puzzled look wonder, ‘My God, where did it go?’
That I learned those lessons at the expense of my first children isn’t fair, but life isn’t fair. I was a younger man, making my way in the world and struggling in turns just to survive. It turns out that I made it, several times over if I’m honest, but in truth I’d trade all that a hundred times over to have back that time. Life moves on though, remorselessly and tirelessly it moves on, immune to the pleas and cries of mortal men.
Reborn. A father again. I like that. But, even as I write this, giggles and squeals and laughs echo through my house as reminders and as delightful as they are, they’ve also taken on the same meaning as my parents grandfather clock ticking in the hallway. Tik. Tok. Tik. Tok. Giggle. Squeal. Tik. Tok.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go act the fool for a little girl before she’s gone.
