Fathers and Mothers

After The Boss was born and the morphine wore off, my midwife came in to sit beside my hospital bed on an institutional glider. She rocked placidly, her hands folded in her lap. First she said I would more than likely develop strong feelings about The Boss's delivery. She said it was okay to feel sad. Then she looked over at my husband, who was holding his daughter's head in his hand, The Boss's lithe body following the length of his forearm.

"The fathers always hold them like that," the midwife said. "It's the most natural thing." She rocked in calm survey of the scene, her back and forth motion carrying the conversation out of the blue.

I looked over at The Partner and saw the innate ease with which he supported our newborn. Behind him, panes of frosted glass muted the summer light. My bedside was dark. I might've sighed with contentment. I might've just laid there.

Looking back on it, I see the football hold as the first proof of protection. It's the bond of body heat fusing father with child. It's a basic connection when there's nothing else in the way. The barriers come later--days later, months later, years later--when life starts to separate from birth.

It's hard to be a family. I remember a picture my friend sent me of her husband with their own baby in the same hold. A tiny head in a huge arm. It looked easy then. Now their daughter is four years old. Now my friend is getting divorced.

The Partner and I are in a rough spot right now--let's face it, we almost always are. So for sanity's sake, I look for things separate from us. I look for links to something solid that we can't obfuscate with common misunderstanding.

That thing is parenthood. It's fathers and the football hold. It's a photographic negative to hold up to the light when nothing else is black and white.



Psssstttt...it's De-Lurking week. This is a time for all you silent readers to come out from under your rock of anonymity. I mean, there must be at least four of you out there. Help give my under-exercised comment box a run for its money.