someone else's story

Okay, so I'm a bit of a whiner. None of the last post wasn't true: I feel horrifically sick, most of the time. There's about a five minute window right after I eat, or right after I get sick where the nausea subsides and I feel gloriously normal. With this math, I figured if I ate every five minutes, I would be okay. This is apparently not the case. Feeling full also makes me feel ill, so who knew? It's a very fine line here lately.

So it is with my emotions as well. Lots of things make me sad lately, and some things make me really happy. In both instances you can expect me to start bawling. None of this polite lady-like crying, no thank you. It's full on water works. I know maybe I'm imagining things (can you believe it?!), but I swear my tears fall harder and faster as well now that I'm pregnant. Maybe it's all that extra water retention.

So I'm driving home from work today, listening to The Fray's new album (which is a must have, if you're asking) and this song comes on called Enough For Now. It's about a girl with no father, and as The Fray always manages to do, it's lyrical enough to be just beautiful, and abstract enough that you can apply the lyrics to your own life with little trouble or imagination. I think the best writing is like that. This could be about a dad that died, or a dad that walked out. It's a beautiful and sad song so I'm tearing up pretty good sitting at my red light, hoping nobody is looking and trying to hold it together.

Now I have mourned my childhood years with no father. Really I have. I am a well adjusted person, I have a great relationship with my "new" dad, and a really wonderful family. Two wonderful families, now that you mention it. I'm sad for my childhood self in the way that I'm a little sad about Luc sometimes, not having his dad yet. But it's like a different person when I think about it. Except for today, because all of a sudden, out of the blue, the most amazing, beautiful, healing thought came to me.

My kids are going to have a dad.

My children will never hear, like I did, that their father wouldn't come to the hospital to see them. My daughter won't ever wonder if her daddy thinks she's the most beautiful princess the world has ever seen. She'll know. My little boy will have someone to teach him how to be a good and wonderful man, and how to throw a football (if it's a girl, she's learning that particular skill too, I'm sure.) In the entire time I've been married to Peter, I have never thought about this. I knew he'd make a great father, you marry a guy for qualities like that. We've talked endlessly about being parents, what we think, how we would discipline, what do we believe about (fill in the blank). I just never thought about it from my children's perspective.

Part of me can't help but think of Luc when I type this, for right now I love that little boy more than any child on earth, and honestly, more than most adults. I can't imagine what we did before Luc was part of our family. I've always felt close to him in a weird way, and always wondered if all aunties feel like this about their nephews, or if it's because it's just him and Robyn, or if it's just because he was the first nephew. Maybe it's because he's the only person alive that shares my gag reflex. It's true. I can always predict what he'll spit out because of the texture of it, because I know I would do it too. Part of me is so sad that Luc doesn't have a dad right now. Ask Robyn, seeing him with Peter just makes our hearts break. But at the same time, I know Luc's story because it was mine and my story turned out really well in the end. I know and have never doubted that Luc is going to have an incredible daddy one day, just like I did. One that heals the part of his life that he's living now, so completely, that one day he'll have trouble remembering that it ever happened to him. It will feel like a page out of someone else's story. I know with every part of me that this is coming for Luc, and so the bigger part of me is happy for him, and excited, and starting to look around every corner for the wonderful man that is coming for him and his mom. I think he's taking his time but I'm an older sister, I'm nosy and bossy and I'm starting to get impatient.

I've thought this for Luc, and Robyn, but I don't know why it never clicked for me about my own babies. They're going to have a father. Someone who will never leave, who will always love them, and teach them to be people who can love well. Amazing. Maybe this isn't as profound to anyone else but me, but I am amazed by this. In this day and age, the only part of my story that they will know is that their family will be different from most of their friends. I'm so happy that they're not going to have childhoods like mine. Sitting in my car today, now bawling, I just couldn't believe how happy that thought made me. What a wonderful man I married four years ago. Not only for me, but for them.