It has been said that making a baby is an easy business but raising one is a life long journey that both drains and revitalizes. Okay, I just said that in my own parentheses. Some plan this which seems both nuts and smart, and the rest of us sort of fall into it. One minute we’re in the thralls of sexual bliss and the next thing we know a baby has in fact been spawned. This is my category and this does not make me a father.
I look at it like this current covid crap. Most people still consider someone like me, a “front line worker”, who is putting his and his family’s lives on the line every day so you can have groceries, some kind of hero. I’ve been thanked for simply showing up to work several times by grateful customers. But I don’t deserve any accolades. As this thing progresses I’m realizing there never really was any threat to my health or any of us working full-time. I’m what I have been since all this nonsense.. some poor sap making a hair over minimum wage. All the masks, taped lines on the concrete or plexiglass partitions don’t make a damn bit of difference because there is no threat.
This is similar to my father title. I didn’t plan this or obtain it. I fell into it. I was stupid and no doubt drunk and high, and I became a father. It’s a sham. It’s real but not really. Any fool can do this. Any chump with a penis. Am I wrong?
But then that’s just nonsense too, isn’t it? I have earned my fatherhood role. I have done more than just insert and thrust. I am worthy to be celebrated today this Fathers Day and any other day for that matter.
I gave up myself when I first looked into their eyes. I was the one who held their hands during their paralysis. I was the one who helped them re-learn how to walk again. I was the one who fought to spend my life with them in a court of law. I was the one who rescued them time and again. I was the one who took them to the hospital countless times. I was the one who became their pharmacist to give them what they needed. I was the one who fed them and clothed them. I was the one that forgot himself to always put them first from having the burnt grilled cheese to making sure they had all that was needed.
I was the one. I put in my hours earning the title father and then some. I can downplay its conception all I want but ultimately the greatest part of who I am inside and out is a parent. It’s the hat I wear the most and the one I’ll never take off. To me every day is fathers day and it’s fantastic.
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