Ray of Hope

/ Joseph Marana
I have memories for each of you.  Sometimes seemingly random, other times significant that stay with me.  That define us.  That impress on my mind so indelibly that I can’t imagine my life, or our lives without that point of connection.  Like an anchor in emotion, of thought and memory.

So many people said it would be different.  It is, but it’s hard to succinctly articulate why, by my words or even in my feelings.  While Kuya William was always our special firstborn son, Matthew on the other hand was much more of my little buddy.  But you.  You truly are my little girl.  It wasn’t anything significant today, but it became so.  Earlier this summer when I stepped outside one early morning when it was still dark, I was startled to see how bright the star Sirius was.  Known also as the Dog Star, it birthed the term “dog days of summer” due to it’s prominence and importance in navigation to the Greeks, Egyptians and Polynesians.  A ray of hope if you will.

So today when we left the house to go and pick up my race materials, my bib and shirt from Ravens Stadium I didn’t think too much of it.  In fact, I was and still am exhausted as I write this.  I came home and only lightly slept for an hour or so.  You stayed home because Mom was working late tonight and I didn’t want to have to drive all the way out to pick you up.  So you sat on my back and ate corndog nuggets while I passed out on the floor.  But the sun warmed the October breeze and our walk from the parking lot to the stadium was immediately filled with lots for you to comment on.  The roads and cars.  The train.  The other kids and the bags everyone carried.  And when we passed the Ray Lewis statue we took our selfie.  I’m always amazed when you appear older and bigger like how you do here.  Why my eyes and face look so crooked is both strange and funny.
image

But walking with you, through the expo as we got your Doc McStuffins doll, the cowbell and the snacks, and the stuffed crab.  You holding my hand and telling me all kinds of things.  Despite my usual emotion and introspection, above all my flowery attempts of description, I can most honestly just say how much of a pleasure it was to spend the day with you.  How it is a true pleasure to be your dad.  It’s not any particular thing you said, or did.  Nothing extraordinary that we saw.  But I think it was a million little things simplified to just a few: watching you through the rearview mirror as we drove, holding your baby unicorn and looking out the window.  Holding your hand and walking through the stadium.  Feeling your breath and face buried in my neck as I carried you.

I came across this old email recently.  I was inspired by this cool Google commercial that was on right around the time you were born.  And while I haven’t kept up with my writing to any one of you consistently, I’m hoping that these posts will one day serve as a message from a younger me to an older you.  A letter from the past to a young woman before I became an older father.  Back when I learned how to be a daddy to my little girl.

“I saw you for the first time yesterday.  I can’t wait to find out all about you.  It is nerve racking but amazing to be witness to you… your inception, your growth and development, and in several months your birth.  It is an honor and a privilage to be here for you, and I can’t help but maybe this was the plan… that I work here in NICU to usher you guys in and do what I can as a nurse, but more importantly as a father.

I never really felt like I got to know your Kuya William when he was here.  I would visit him in those cold dark mornings before my drive to LA.  I would scream out my window on my way home as I passed the hospital that I would be coming to see him soon.  I would nuzzle with him in my neck at night.  But it wasn’t until he was home, the first time, that we finally got to know each other.  We had laid the futon out in the living room, as a place to sit but also lay and relax.  After Kuya William came home from the NICU I took some time off.  There was one day in particular, where I sat on that futon for probably the whole day with him in my lap.  I used to sit cross legged and place him right in the crook of my knee just like how he would lie in his boppy.  And that day he was so good and playful, alert and attentive.  I must have stared at his face for hours, and I felt for the first time that he truly knew me.  That day we bonded, and had our first William and Daddy day.  I realized then, and remember that emotion as though it were happening still… that these moments, these live moments in time that are recorded for the duration of our memories… these times are the ones that define and sculpt the shape and meaning of our lives.  I can’t wait to make memories with you too.
Dad – August 9, 2011″

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