To my child

Yesterday, we heard your heartbeat again. It sounded like a locomotive. And, funny enough, you were moving around. The nurse-technician had to follow you around your mother's belly to keep us hearing your heartbeat. You will remember none of this.

I can't express the wild range of feelings and thoughts that came when we finally heard your heart beating rapidly. Reassurance mainly. A collective sigh of relief to hear that you are still there growing daily. It will still be several months before we finally get to see you face to face. Yet you are already existing. You have already fallen into this world of finitude. Your journey has already began as you claim your place in space-time.

I marvel at that - that you and I already share this commonality. You are a new tendril on the giant tree that is existence. Maybe that will make more sense when you are older and see for yourself the rebirth of plants after a long winter, when you see the bright green of a bud unfold and open and spread. I look forward to that - to you experiencing things for the first time. It occurs to me the duty I have toward you. To protect you. To nourish you. To help you grow. And I feel, more pressing now, the need to work for the betterment of the world you will inhabit. I hope that I don't fail you in this. I hope that the searching and struggles I am undergoing now will assist toward that end. I hope that I can provide you a proper base from which you will spring into your own experiences and judgements.

We are already sharing existence. And we are both struggling right now - myself with the issues that come from aging and experience - you with the impetus towards life and growth. Maybe that is exactly what you are right now: the purity of the struggle for growth and continued existence that we often become numb to after we are birthed and grow older.

I hope that I am a good father to you.