Today our daughter Bo is five years old. Bo has been nearly five for a whole year now, so we are all super excited. Being a child is such a big adventure, and so too is being a parent. Below is a rough draft of a poem I wrote, called Becoming a Dad. Some poems are born all at once, and others become poems over time, just like children and parents become themselves over time.
You don’t just become a dad
once.
It happens many times over with
the same child.
When your child is born, you
become a dad.
And when you take your child home
for the first time, you really
become a dad.
When you rock your baby to sleep
in the early a.m. hours, you
become a dad.
When there is no one else to clean
up the sick, you really
become a dad.
And when she smiles at you,
not just with her lips, but with her
eyes and her heart, you are
anointed and blessed and you
become a dad.
Across the years, in every moment
that passes, you become a dad,
and you are given a chance to be
who you really are.
One day, as you sit there, waiting
for a business meeting to begin,
or something, it hits you. Really
hits you. Between the eyes. “I
am a dad.”
A real dad.
And as you smile to yourself, your
heart takes off, like a big balloon,
floating high into the sky.
