What can a father say when he sees his little daughter for the first time? What aimless articulation of tongue and vocal folds could say more than can the first gentle movements of the child—the kicks, the punches, the simple extension of a leg and the brief movement of an eye? What more powerful message than that: ‘I am here!’
Having now yielded to the urge of confessing this little miracle as nothing but divine, he can only sit humbly back into the deliberate stillness of the ultrasound room as the silent awe sinks in. In the end, he asks, how different are his movements than hers? How is he different in purpose? She is here to be an agent unto herself, and so is he; He has grown first, and now will she; He beholds his posterity before him, and so will she in a few years from now. Then what right does he have to be her father? Time seems to disappear as he promises to do his best. Her bouncing little body and furious beating heart exclaim her excitement of what it means to be and to grow. Perhaps the Heavens sent her here so that he could learn that same lesson about development, after all: that as her little, tender personality is becoming apparent, a parent is what he’s becoming.
0 Comments
|
Wells Family
Est. 08-11 Archives
June 2016
Categories |