Letters to Max - prologue

Dear Max,

We’re two days away from your arrival into this world. Your mother couldn’t be happier to get her body back, since your presence has made mobility difficult, laughing painful and going to the loo an inconveniently frequent experience. She’s also looking forward to eating all the carb-rich foods she’s had to abstain from thanks to gestational diabetes.

I sit here writing thank you notes in advance and wondering how we got here. It’s hard to reconcile the world of pain that I know awaits, made more real by the conversations we have already had with friends who have been through the experience of having a child. Actually, there already has been a world of pain in having to prepare for your arrival. From having to figure out what kind of parents we want to be, what we should name you, reading about all the challenges we might face in the first few months and even more when you’re old enough to walk, eat and go to school.

I can’t say I’m pleased with your existence. I will be frank, I never wanted a kid and still don’t. But your momma wanted one very very much and I love your momma. I can’t say I love you yet since you’re not even out, but one thing I do know for sure is that you never had a say in the matter. Whether I love you or not, I have a responsibility for bringing you into this world. So I hope I do love you. I hope I find the strength to remind myself, every time you poop or piss in my face, every time you scream and cry and I can’t figure out why, every time I wonder why I can’t just stay in bed, play games or do nothing all day, of the reasons why I chose to do so.

I love your momma. That’s the main reason why. And one of the reasons why it’s so hard for me, why I have to keep reminding myself of the reasons why is because we’ve both come to the conclusion that the reason your momma wanted to have you was not a very logical reason. There’s part of it that’s a desire to have a new experience, but it seems largely to stem from wanting to raise the child her momma wasn’t able to because she died in childbirth. And it stings bad because she’s been of the opinion that we shouldn’t let our past, particularly dead people and the peer pressure they exert, affect our decisions today. But her desire to have you just seems to fly in the face of that. And when we got together all those years ago, we said we weren’t going to have kids.

But things change. Your momma changed. I change. I hope I can change to be a good father, one that my father never was. I hope I can be there for you, at the times where you feel the most vulnerable, that I can be there to carry you when you cannot walk. Because you’re already here.

I hope you have a happy life.