fathers day
I did not carry the children inside me, one after another each approaching a year, and forever in me. I would not feel their kicks until we fight or do sports, or be wracked with pains like dying so that I can push forth another generation of life renewed and perpetuated. Yet, I will always be the one at the side, in wonder and confusion at the shared life growing inside of her, and now moving freely in the world, from little toddles to run, jump, and fly. I will nonetheless be held responsible that although she did so much of the physical work, progeny will bear my name in all shame and glory, in all mundanity and specialty, timeless unto oblivion.
Yet the selfishness that was me falls away, an inexplicable takeover of answering to their cries, needs, fears, and dreams which are now mine, because I am me no longer, but part of the greater whole. Mileage varies for each male parent, and failed one, but I hear the eternal, infinite song that if we listen truly, we all solemnly dance to. My petty survival alone now means naught, what survives is that we are there to make it count, make a difference, to be just that one even if were once all alone and none who cared.
Such paradox that their vulnerabilities, that makes me the supposedly erstwhile invincible soldier just as vulnerable a defender and guardian now, with the same blind spots and unprotected back. And yet, when I only had me to think about, I could never have been so strong, because I am needed not to fail.
And so I discover the happy boy within once more, wide-eyed at the beauty of the world and cosmos, because all these boys and girls affirm our reason for being.