Fatherhood

They tell you a lot of things when they hear you’ve got a baby on the way. The nebulous They. Your coworkers, family, strangers on the street, baggers at the grocery checkout. Oh, it’s the greatest time, they will tell you. Enjoy every moment while it lasts, because they’ll be in college before you know it. Do this trick for that problem and that trick for this problem. On and on.

But nobody tells you that you will think homicidal thoughts.

That is not quite what it sounds like. Allow me to explain.

I am a pacifist. I have never been in a fight. Despite desperately wanting to get in one during my early 20s, I am glad I did not succeed in that. I am past the age of the draft, but I used to wonder what I would do on the frontline of a battle. I think I would die rather than kill. Easy to say from my couch, but who knows.

All that is to set up background. When they placed my son in my hands for the first time and I looked down at his squawling little face I immediately thought:

“I will kill anyone who tries to hurt you.”

Just like that. Kill. I didn’t intentionally think this so much as the thought came up unbidden. Just appeared there in my psyche. I balked at first. Kill?! But then, yeah. I probably would.

***********

He’s almost 10 weeks old now. Last week I had a nightmare. I could hear Joy screaming my name from the other end of the house. I couldn’t tell what was happening to her, but I could hear terror in her voice. The kind of terror that makes the hair on the back of your stand up when you hear it. I didn’t know if she was hurt or the baby was hurt or if there was an intruder. I had no idea what was wrong. I just knew that she needed me. Remember, this was all in my mind, all in the dream.

In real life, I leapt out of bed and sprinted to our bedroom door, intending to run to wherever she was calling from. Then I heard Joy call out “Joey?!” This time her voice was calmer. She was confused, but calm. She was also lying right next to where I had just been in bed. I had startled her by jumping out of bed from a dead sleep. “What’s the matter?” She asked.

Nothing. Nothing at all. Just a nightmare. A Dad nightmare. A husband nightmare. Took me more than an hour to fall back to sleep. And the sound of her screams haunted me for a couple days. But I do know that if I had come across anyone in our home hurting her or the baby... they would’ve regretted that decision.