Responsibility // December 18, 2007

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My child lies on my shoulder. I just finished feeding her and now, satisfied, she rests comfortably, sometimes rooting on my skin. We’re up to 2 or 2.5 ounces of mommy milk per feeding. Every day, she changes. I can see her face grow older and have more definition. I can see her cheeks start to fill out, her features more like her mom.  

Its an incredible feeling.

I don’t really have it in my yet to describe it. I’m not sure how to put it all into words. I’ve been asked on the phone and in emails what it feels like to be a dad and I usually respond with an “oh, well you know…” and if I’m talking to another dad they are like, “yeah, I know.” I’m not sure that either of us knows what the other means but at the same time, we do.

Honestly, with the way the word “love” is thrown around in our culture, its almost trite to use it in this context. It doesn’t carry the depth of meaning I want to convey. Of course there is love – there is also, and I hesitate using this word because its going to carry a negative context – responsibility. Another word, that has baggage. However, I use it in the most positive sense I can think of. I use it the way, I think, Adam would have used it to describe the Garden – it was his responsibility, his reason for living, his joy, his sorrow, his fulfillment, his mission and his love. That’s how I feel when I hold Sophia.

She is so small that she was having trouble nursing. She just has a tiny mouth! We were worried that she was not eating enough – no worries there now, we feed her with our fingers and a medicine dropper! She just gobbles it all up. Sometimes, after a couple ounces, she’ll look up at me and be done – I’ll sneak a couple more squirts in – and I’ll experience a pride unlike any pride I have known. I’ve been privileged to accomplish some things in my life that make me quite proud, but getting my daughter to take a couple more swigs of milk trumps all of that!

There is a line in Michael Card’s “Joseph’s Song” that goes like this: “He looks so small, his face and hands so fair… and when he cries, the sun just seems to disappear…”
It couldn’t be more accurate. When my daughter cries, there is nothing I would not do to comfort her. We give up sleep, personal time, schedules – just to comfort our child. When Sophie (and she actually does not cry that much – she is a very peaceful child) cries, its like the world stops on its axis, there is this sucking vortex that grabs me and pulls me toward her, and then, nothing else matters in the world but her. Ah, then there’s the joy and pride of rocking her to sleep in my arms.

Sophia is resting on my shoulder now, her precious, tiny head under my chin.

There is no feeling like this in the world.