Fatherhood

Reflections the day after

So, I am sending out a piece about fatherhood a day late (or maybe 364 days early) from the yearly calendar marking that spurs outpourings of tributes and reflections. I thought about publishing this yesterday, but I was too busy and having too much fun actually being a father. 

I am also a bit overwhelmed by the immensity and pervasiveness of fatherhood as a concept. I try to infuse my essays with hints of literature, history, science, and the arts, but with this issue, it’s everywhere. What can I add to everything already written and said about the matter? This topic seems particularly fogbound. 

Why not skip it altogether? I was tempted. But then I heard two compelling reasons to forge ahead: Eva and Helena (they like seeing their names in print). 

How can I refuse an entreaty that starts with “Dad, you should write about us!” So I write to them in thanks for making this Father’s Day particularly lovely (with significant assistance coming from their mother). 

There was our ritualistic Sunday pilgrimage to the farmer’s market, where we experimented with mixing green juices with green smoothies (recommended). A brunch across town included a providential parking spot, which appeared as we rushed to make our reservation. Helena had a birthday party to attend, so Eva and I went to see “Inside Out 2.” We saw the first “Inside Out” nine years ago, shortly before moving from New York to San Francisco, which, if you know anything about the plot of that movie, included a heavy dose of portension. 

Sitting next to my now-16-year-old daughter in the theater (she had already seen it with her boyfriend), sharing a soda and a squeeze of the arm, eyes misting together, her saying, “See, Dad, isn’t it good?” was a perfect way to round out the day. 

As the washing machine serenaded the coming week, the quiet house soothed me into a reflective state and I began to write. I read their handwritten notes with smiles of pride and wisps of fleeting nostalgia over how fast it is all going. My daughters like playing with words, sentences, and sentiments, even if they struggle with punctuation and spelling. I will take that trade-off any day. 

I am all too aware that there will be a time when the chapters of life will include me not being able to tuck them in, hug them, and tell them how much I love them—at least in person. 

One of the instinctual phrases parents use to calm worried children is, “I’ll always be there for you.” We say it in good faith, meaning that nothing they can do will shake our love. But we know that “always” is metaphoric. Hanging over these precious relationships is the precariousness of life itself. I desperately hope it is I who eventually (after a long time) won’t always be there for them, and not the other way around. 

I know fathers for whom this isn’t the case, who outlived children. I think of them, particularly on Father’s Day. I can’t begin to imagine. 

I also think about children who lost fathers early in life. When I was a child, my dad told me the story of a classmate from elementary school who lived in a small apartment with his mother. The boy invited my dad over and showed him a box he kept in his room. It contained the medals his father was bestowed in World War II before he was killed in action. That’s what he had of his dad. I have pictured that room, the boy, and the box countless times in the decades since. 

I think of those for whom this is their first Father’s Day without their father. And I think of those for whom “father” is a source of trauma. 

One of the greatest fortunes of my life is that I have been surrounded by an immediate and extended family of fathers and mothers who created generational foundations of love. I have learned so much from being around them. 

This Father’s Day, I felt lucky to be able to juggle time zones and call (or, more specifically, WhatsApp) my father, who is at a science meeting in Greece. We didn’t talk about anything particularly profound—just a check-in to update each other on life. Whenever I do that, there is a flicker of hope in my mind that in the decades ahead, my children will also choose to call me often. 

As parents, we are inundated with information—much of it contradictory—about how we should act, feel, or set our expectations. I have forgotten most of what I’ve heard or read, but a few pearls of wisdom stick with me. 

A favorite one resonates on Father’s Day. I heard from someone that a parent is most involved in a child’s life in the first few years — a time your children eventually will not remember. It’s called “childhood amnesia,” what the NIH defines as “the inability of human adults to remember episodic experiences that occurred during the first few years of life.” In other words, many of my most vivid memories with my daughters they don’t share in return. 

First birthday parties and early friendships. The first time on a slide, a swing, and walking. Strollers, diaper changing, baby food, and the praying we did on long flights for sleep and no tears. I remember their favorite baby toys and bedtime stories. Music classes, art projects, lullabies, and Halloween costumes. 

These moments with my children will be with me until the end. They can look at old pictures, but it’s like when I look at my baby photos. I know it’s me, and I know it’s important to my parents. But I don’t remember any of it. 

As I sit across from my daughters today, I feel I know them very well and am proud of who they are becoming. But I am all too aware that an increasing percentage of their lives exist beyond the horizons of my knowledge. I went through that when I was their age. We all do. And that is how it should be. 

One searing memory from my early days as a father is always lurking below the surface. I was home alone with Eva late at night. She was just over a year old and was sick with a high fever. I held her on the couch in the dark, trying to calm her and myself. Suddenly, she started shaking violently and foaming at the mouth. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Her lips turned blue, and then she went limp. I remember yelling for help in the hallway of our apartment building as I waited for the paramedics. I remember feeling helpless, hopeless, and horrified. I remember feeling that the worst thing in my life had just happened. 

I now know it was a febrile seizure, an ultimately harmless but terrifying event. Eva would have more in the years ahead. And then she outgrew them. 

Both of my daughters are now far too tall to hold in my arms like I did when they were younger. Helena in particular often asks me, “Do you remember the last time you picked up your child?” And then they request I pick them up, even if it’s an inch off the ground and only for a second. 

Just so we know that we’ve had one more shared time holding on to the past, in the present, nurturing dreams of the future. 

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