Zachary Winston Williams: February 2009

Winston,

I'm not a poet, not nearly.

I have neither the eloquence nor the skill to convey what is in my heart today and for this I hope you'll forgive me. I want you to understand that my failure here is neither from lack of inclination nor lack of trying. It's simply that it is difficult for me to think when all I can do is feel.

I want to tell the entire story of your life; every moment of the 365 days since you first lay in my arms and I shakily whispered, "I'm your Daddy. Nice to meet you."

I want to lay out all my wishes for you. All my hopes and blessings. I want to tell you how much you've changed me, how much you've taught me in a year. Perhaps I learned more in this year than in my entire lifetime.

But the task is too great, my feelings too overpowering. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. Another day the words might come. But today, I can only tell you what I can tell you, and that will have to be enough.

One year and roughly nine months ago, your mom and I entered a strange new world. Phrases like Poker Night, bar hopping and margarita with salt were erased from my vocabulary and replaced with expressions like Lamaze classes, breathing coach, morning sickness and mucus plug. I anxiously watched as your mothers' body spread and stretched, her organs nudged one another over to make room for the new life. An amazing anatomical dance just for you.

The first time I laid eyes on you, I'd like to say that my initial thought was "I love you." but I'd be lying.

I loved the idea of you. But the actual you, was a stranger to me. For 41 and a half weeks you were all I had thought about, every day, every night. I sang to you the best I could. I read to you. I made brilliant, grandiose plans for you. I dreamed of you. I awoke thinking of you and nothing but you. I assumed all of those things would add up to knowing a person.

But when I looked at you, I knew I had been mistaken.

And so my first thought that February evening was, "Who is this?"

I don't know these eyes, I don't know this nose, I don't know these ears, I don't know this cry. Who is this little boy in my arms, trying to make sense of the world. The fluorescent lights, the women in scrubs, the tearful Grandmother, the exhausted mommy who wants nothing more than a large glass of wine? Who is he? Who is he going to be? Who is he going to be to me?

The first night in the hospital, the three of us were alone together. I was terrified. Excited. Panicked and happy. And then in the wee hours that I stared at you, it struck me-- you weren't a stranger at all. It was another time, another place; a relationship I can't quite put my finger on. But it was real and some piece of me was struck with the recognition.

That's when I realized, the face may be unfamiliar but the relationship is not new at all. Teacher and student. Together again.

The student being me.

Here I want to convey this remarkable spirit, this unrelenting joy you radiate and how it has defined you for the last twelve months. But again the language is just out of reach.

I close my eyes, trying to see the combination of letters and commas, periods and spaces that will bring your personality to life, but everything just seems fuzzy and off. A cloudy alphabet soup.

Instead of words, I see images: You waving at the refrigerator. You laughing at a tree. You smiling at a hurried businessman on the street, making him forget the cell phone at his ear and the attitude he wears like armor-- just long enough for him to stop talking mid-sentence and smile back. A brief moment of your attention is enough to change someone's entire heart.

Oh, how I want you to stay this person. This person who isn't afraid to clap for a mailbox or laugh at the clouds. But I know I can't make you. I can only allow you to be who you are at that moment. Gone as soon as it arrives.

I press my eyelids closed again because I want to see who you are at One, lock it into my memory forever. Even if I have no words in my head, I do have the images.

I see your 5 teeth and the hair that just starting to be long enough to curl in random places when you come out of the bath.

I see your perfect pale skin and the smooth soles of your feet.

I see you grabbing my nose in the morning, poking my face or pulling my hair until I agree to start the day.

I see your face covered in cookie crumbs. Or sweet potatoes. Or wet, soggy specks of Gerber goo.

I see you chasing the dog under the table, crawling nearly as fast as he can run on the hardwood floors. I see you grabbing at him as he passes, then slowly opening a moist palm to discover a handful of fine black fur.

I see you laughing at the recessed lighting in the kitchen, an inside joke between you and the 60 watt bulbs.

I see you jumping. Jumping when Mommy walks in the door from work. Or simply jumping because it's the single best thing in the whole entire world and you can do it higher and longer and with far more passion than anyone, anywhere, ever.

I see you laying your head on my chest when the fatigue is just too much to fight, even for you, the amazing non-sleeping baby. I see myself lowering my nose to your head and inhaling, wanting so badly to remember the warmth, the smell, the feeling.

And always, always I see you smiling.

I struggle with the knowledge that these images will eventually be lost to me. The details now so sharp will become eroded and eventually erased with the inevitable passage of time.

Yet I know that I am merely shouting at a sunset. Begging it to stay. Knowing that it can't. I search for the strength to simply sit back and enjoy the show. To embrace the understanding that, like a sunset, your rich color, life and vibrancy will continue to become more and more beautiful with each passing moment.