Fatherhood, Turning 1, and a Saved Life

My little guy turns one today. Countless parents have told me how quickly time goes by, and I have joined that dumfounded club. I feel as if I am more intentional than some parents, choosing to relish every moment with my son. I often put my phone away, keep the TV off, and just spend time on the floor in an attempt to experience life as he does, wild and free. Yet, it doesn’t help time move any slower. It does however redeem the moments and make them count a little more. Being a father has been nothing like I have ever imagined. It is non-stop and often without description in both the good and the bad moments.

Before I was a dad, I had an ache. Seeing fathers with their sons would sting me squarely in my chest. It was a reverberation of an expected weight of “real” life. Seeing this in the simplest of times, made me think of things greater than job title and influence. It proved there was something sacred in this life found in laughs and mimics. Now that I am on the other side of fatherhood, that ache is still there. There is a welcomed purity my life was missing that creeps just behind my ribcage and in the watery eyes I now regularly find myself with. In the most honest of ways, Reed has saved me from a boring life – a life lived for this world and its pitfalls of “success”. While we are all to some extent broken, flawed, and confused, he has shown me the good within the chaos of this life and in doing so saved a part of me I thought was lost.

There have been more than a few times over the past few years I wished to fade away – to become whatever a man becomes after his breath retreats. Days march on into absurdity carrying with them a weight that is unmanageable at times. It is no exaggeration to say that my son has given me a reason to live and helped me to see past these fickle days. No, he hasn’t made life easier and often it is more difficult with him. But this is a good responsibility, a noble one worth the sleepless nights and frustrations it purchased. Unemployment, stress, and personal hurts no longer carry as much of a sting as they use to because in a strange way, life has stopped becoming about me. This is a beautiful mid-life gift.

Happy birthday buddy. Your life means measures more than the growing frame it holds. You are a rescuer. A champion of joy. You are your father’s hero.

¹⁷ Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.  – James 1:17