Who can be a father?

She is sleeping on my chest. Her beautiful blue eyes are covered by the delicate eyelids that are squeezed shut on this lazy Wednesday afternoon. Mom is in the kitchen doing some cleaning so it is my job to watch the baby. Watching the baby for me means lying on the couch and having her rest in my arms. It is very easy work, assuming the little angel is asleep as Taylor has been. There is something about holding a baby in your arms. They are like old men, go from sleeping to awake and back to asleep, in between breaths, only unlike old men, their waking moments normally are accompanied by a short cry. A couple times when Taylor began to cry Tiffany asked if I wanted her to take her, but I knew that the crying was only because she needed to shift her head from one side to the other and that the crying would fade as quickly as it started.

We laid there for a good two hours. First I was praying, praying about the father I may be one day. When you hold a young babe in your arms, only the most stone hearted wouldn’t think about the child and how their life is literally and figuratively in your hands. This baby is so helpless. It disgusts me to even think about how easily that life could be snuffed out, so little effort would be necessary, or for that mater, no effort at all, doing nothing could end the life.

Taylor is need. Her whole existence is based on the giving of others: her mom, her dad, her grandparents, even her uncle. It is not too boastful to say that without us she would die. So with great trepidation I hold her. What kind of father will I be? This one isn’t even mine, so these few short days in the morning of her life are inconsequential. I doubt I will remember them and she most definitely won’t. Or maybe I will. As I said earlier, she is beautiful and right now as I stare into her face, I long for one of my own. Maybe this moment today will be a turning point, a time when I realize with absolute certainty that I want this thing that I do not yet have? Maybe so?

Babies make noises. All sorts of quite gurgles and coughs, burps, bumbles, sneezes and floops. Her breathing is rapid, maybe 5 breaths to every one of my own. I think she is going to be a snorer. Her little nose hastily consuming and discharging the air around her and my slow breath as it covers her. I try to breathe away because I would hate to make her sick with unwittingly.

One thought that keeps running through my head is how close she really is. Our faces for all this time have been only inches away and that is an intimacy I am not altogether familiar with. Think about it, how often do you look so closely at another’s face that you can pick out each spot on their cheek? See the wrinkle in their nose, and count the little white heads below their eyes? I doubt even husbands and wives stare at each other this much. Someone would be accused of being a stalker if they were to do that with someone else, but here I lie, staring endlessly at her, not a single concern in her cringing, perpetually closes eyes.

Oh, she is smiling. Nothing has changed. I didn’t move and neither has she. There must be an innate sense of joy in that little mind. God has come down to look on his perfect creation and she can see Him, even if I can’t.

I could be here forever. If this one was my own, I wouldn’t hesitate.

It is tomorrow.

Jason