From an early age I knew that I liked kids. I liked the funny things they did to make me laugh as well as the milliseconds that came when they showed me flashes of their growing intelligence -- little evidences that they could see and understand things that I either hadn't seen myself or suspected they didn't. Little human beings, differing from me only in experience. I always loved being around them.
Despite my deep fondness for kids, though, I can't say that being a dad was something I always dreamed about growing up. With the religious upbringing I had, I figured that I had a world of time to have children - if not in this world, then certainly in the Better One that was surely soon to come.
So, when I got married the first time, the matter of "kids or no kids" was neither a priority nor major issue with my wife. If children blessed the union--fine. If not, I was cool with that, too. After all, eternity was on my side.
Time tends to change a thinking person's perspective on many things, and so it was with my childlessness.
Well into the marriage, the thought occurred to me one day that, in total, my five siblings had exactly a dozen children between them. Every one of them had at least two children and I had not a single one. It dawned on me one day that I alone, of my mother's six children, was the only one that had no offspring. I represented a dying/soon-to-be-dead branch of the Jones family tree. While the epiphany wasn't exactly life-altering, it was still a heavy mental burden that nagged at me.
To this day, I can't say why I hadn't had kids by then. I never got myself checked and neither did my wife so was it me or her? Or just bad timing? Since she had a child already before we got married and since we often had un-protected relations, it was assumed (and once even loudly alleged) that the problem was mine. With that in mind, I took a further hit, this one psychological, to my manhood. While I forgave myself for my physical and biological inadequacy, it only added to the bitter pill I'd already swallowed in having no living legacy.
Time passed, the marriage failed. Life went on and I met another and got married again -- my last.
One day, she told me the incredible news, news I admit that I had a hard time believing. I was 41. How could this be? I, I'm a bit ashamed to say, even accused her of infidelity. How could the child be mine? How?
Time marched on. The child grew, doctors visits were made. A few months before the arrival, I bought a video camera and began to make a living record -- a record of Mommy's burgeoning belly and of our life "before." A few days prior to the birth I even got video of Mommy's belly moving. Baby Girl was getting ready, itching to meet the world.
The time came. I was seconds away from crossing a threshold that countless other women and men had crossed. Did it mean as much to them as it meant to me? Could it? Could they possibly have felt as gloriously happy as I did? I doubt it.
It stands as about the only time in my life when I recall being on the verge of absolutely loosing control. My eyes glaze over, even now, with the memory. All I need do is close my eyes, and I'm there! It's a memory that does not fade with time.
Happy Father's Day, y'all. It's a job I wouldn't trade for all the world.