I have now realized that the intricate, manifold nature of the emotions surrounding fatherhood is way too complex to attempt to convey in a universal manner. Each birth is new, and every father I am sure experiences something different. As promised, however, I will express what my fatherhood has been like thus far.

I spent something like 5 hours trying to share some of Eralda’s pain as she went through labor. It may seem like this is no big deal, and indeed, compared to what she had to feel and experience what I went through was negligible. Even so, it pained me to see someone I love so much suffer like that, especially towards the end, when I actually began to fear for her health as she was pushed towards the edge of what the human body can endure.

Something strange, however, happened towards the end. As soon as I saw Jack come reeling into the world struggling to inhale his first breath, it felt as though someone pulled the plug and flicked a switch at once. The plug drained my stress and tension and for the first time in 5 hours I was able to truly breathe. The switch was the emotional numbing that inevitably occurs when anything powerful happens in my life. It’s like a damper that kicks in to keep me from feeling too much. Rather cruel really, to hide from somebody life’s emotional peaks. The upside to this is that like a passive aggressive person who is unable to really feel anger until it explodes, this emotional symphony that rages just beneath what I can actually feel seeps up through my writing, which is what makes me worth spit as a poet. Cathartic writing is really the only kind of writing I am capable of.

The nurses took our child, wiped him clean, and handed him to me. He had been crying out rather helplessly ever since the womb, but as soon as my arms wrapped him up and he heard my voice, he calmed instantly. More numbing. An ocean of running love just below the surface. Impossibly, Jack’s eyes fluttered open and they were deep-sea green, and he stared straight at me. Pediatrics will tell you that newborns cannot focus and see nothing but blurs. I don’t care what pediatrics claim – Jack looked me straight in the soul and said “Here I am, your whole life has been building up to this moment. I belong to you and mommy. I am the fruit of your love, the natural extension of the home you have built. I live and breathe and grow. I am half of you and half of her, derived but entirely new.”

When I finally came to my senses (babies are narcotic), I handed the baby to Eralda and looked at her face. I swear to you that no angel has ever radiated such beauty. I wanted to pick her up out of bed and hold her and him, to support my whole family in my trembling arms and never let go. I knew at that moment that as long as life coursed through my coffee corroded vessels, I would see to it that neither one of them ever felt need of what I am capable of providing. They were incorporated into my vital statistics. I knew that their death would mean the cruelest kind of “vegetable state,” the most horrendous paralysis. I once heard a man say that not all the policemen in the world could keep him from blowing his head off if he found out his family had been killed. Now I understand. I also understand now how tempting it is to worship them, how easy it would be to make them my religion. This is why the lullabies I sing to Jack are praises to God, and even then I have to make sure that it is God I am calling “beautiful beyond description.”

Most recently, I have discovered the joy of coming home after work and seeing the face of my son after having missed him all day. This joy is bittersweet as well, for I notice that some subtle change has occurred, he has grown since I have been gone, and I am jealous of Eralda for not having to miss a single moment.

I pray the blessing of children on each of you.