He was meant to be a girl’s dad. He was meant to be the father of daughters before he knew he would be one. Children had never come so fast. When they met, the topic of raising children came up briefly, and then it wasn’t a concern. There was a life of possibility and adventure that lay open before them, one that had no sense of deadline or expectation. And then a pregnancy test changed all that. And in an instant, their world was turned upside down.
Now they were just two young people standing on the edge of a life they hadn’t necessarily planned on making. She was convinced the child would be a boy. She had already decided in her heart that all her children would be sons—each one a duplicate of him. He never expressed a preference, reluctant to hope for one outcome over another. And yet in the middle of all this, he was already shielding the little girl that she was carrying.
The moment he laid eyes on his daughter, the world completely changed for him. He saw his wife looking back at him in her miniaturized face. Then he saw the baby sister his parents had lost before he was born, before he had even held the reins to his earthly journey. Finally, he saw his sister, his best friend from childhood, and his mom, all mirrored back at him in the very first sight of his offspring. There was the whole essence of fatherhood breathed into his soul in that brief moment. Then he began to honor all the previous holders of such responsibility who had loved, protected, and sacrificed for no reward at all to benefit such insignificant creatures called human beings.
He appeared robust, energetic, and confident to the world, and he was all of those things to her and to others, but he had a strength that housed a soft heart that loved thoroughly and felt deeply. This is why he had been given daughters—four of them, to be exact. In the ultrasound chair, where he and all the other expectant parents had gathered to discover the sex of their twins, having two girls of their own, she had hoped, quietly, for boys. There had to be boys, after all. He said simply, “Two more girls,” when the technician told him the sex, and she sat back, mute with shock, while he grinned, comfortable with the role he had to fulfill.
His daughters demanded patience and love and a constant stream of reassurance; he supplied these needs in plenty. He rocked tiny flesh-and-blood selves through sleepless nights, held ailing girls in his arms when they couldn’t be at school or at his ankles when they refused to let him leave for his office, and made them feel safe. He roughhoused on the carpet of their family room, staged tea parties with reckless exuberance, and made mundane events into memories to cherish. He instilled in them a sense of bravery by tossing them high into the air and catching them every time.
He rode bicycles with wheels too big for him, side by side with children on bikes without training wheels, gasping for breath and laughing, rubbing scuffed knees and talking soothingly to dispel fears. He listened to their concerns, which seemed monumental to their small souls, respecting their feelings rather than dismissing them. He demonstrated for them a passion for living without being controlled by those feelings. He tempered anger, encouraged laughter, and made them see that they didn’t have to take life quite so seriously.
Though he never biologically had a son, one was added through adoption. A sensitive boy, no different than himself, whose tears easily and honestly flowed. He saw aspects of his own youth mirrored in the child. And though he was a son, he was treated no differently from the girls; his emotions were met with patience and understanding, and his being was allowed to simply be what it was, rather than being pushed in another direction.
But someday he will put his daughter’s hand in another man’s and hope she knows what love is, for she will have learned it from him first. His influence will live on through the generations. His impact is felt through the love his children show others: he is the constant they come back to, and it is built for this world. They are ever grateful that he gets to raise his daughters, because he knows he would not want it otherwise.
