As a teacher, I have been telling stories about my children for as long as I remember. And why wouldn't I tell them? They are like my own children. Some of them have looked after them a time or to and I consider my choir family an extension of my own.
On that note, I have a student who has told me time and again I should write my stories down and I could not think of a better one to start with, given the time of year than one I have told to students, colleagues, and friends alike. It involves my oldest child.
The day our Oldest was born, my wife agreed to an epidural (sedation that taps into the spinal chord). I was nervous about the procedure myself but it was my wife's decision and after being informed about it she said yes. A possible side effect, we were told, was that the baby may also be under the influence of the sedation. That is exactly what happened.
Our Oldest came to us sometime in the afternoon on a beautiful Fall day. Her eyes were closed. She did not appear to be responsive. She looked as though she was asleep and for a moment it was as if all that I knew was being torn from my being. And I was afraid.
I have endured some ugly, painful things in my life but I never felt as terrified or helpless as I did that afternoon in the delivery room, watching the nurse hold my daughter. She was placed in an incubator and it was at that time the nurse turned to me as said, "sing to her."
Sing to her.
I attended a workshop on the ability of developing babies to hear and possibly even possess memory not only three months earlier. I came home excited about what I learned and we sang to our child whenever possible. Some of my most cherished memories as a husband and father are of me laying in bed or on the couch, singing to our children when they were in the womb.
I had read and heard stories of people who recalled things that their mothers/fathers could not explain because they happened prior to being born.
Interesting. Touching. And now all I can think of is the song I sang to her every chance I could do so:
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.
You make me happy, when skies are grey.
You'll never know just how much I love you.
Please don't take my sunshine away.
A simple song that sums up how I see myself as her father. She (all of them, really) are my sunshine. At their best and worst, that will always be the case. In our happiest hours and our saddest, this will remain. There is no possible way for any of my children to know just how much I love them because I have realized that the capacity to do so has grown so much since they were born. And then there is the last line. the one that was going through my mind that afternoon: please don't take my sunshine away.
It was then that I learned the hardest truth about parenting: I really have no control. This life that has been given to me to care for exists in the same world I do-one where the only control I ever really have involves how I handle what comes my way. We could have lost her that day. We could still lose her and there is nothing we could do about it. All we can (and should) do is prepare them for their lives and the world they will soon join. Hopefully, we do so with humor, faith, empathy, and intelligence.
I think we can find eternity in the present. I did precisely that on that October afternoon. I can tell you where everyone in the room was. I can tell you exactly where I was standing in relation to my daughter when I began to sing to her. And I will always be moved when I tell what happened next:
She opened her eyes. Her gaze went across the room in my direction and in that moment,
I just kept singing.
Many times since then, when I look at her, I remember this day. I re-live it. I hope I am being the best father I can be for her and her siblings, especially when I know I get things wrong. And I do.
I also hope that in those moments, they know that when I get back on my feet it is because I want them to know that I will not give up on them-ever. And they should not give up, either.
Every day I have the joy of taking them to school and in those moments, I see a wonderful transformation taking place.
Every day, they become stronger, smarter, more independent, than the day before. They also become more compassionate, selfless, empathetic, and ever mindful of those who cannot help themselves. And we are blessed.
I have come to see my children in the context of a different trinity:
When I held them.
As I see them now.
The persons into which they will grow.
Every day is as much a new adventure as it is a blessing and I am thankful for each day with them.
I love you!
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