He starts babbling before his eyes open while sucking on his pacifier noisily. Without looking at my watch, I know it’s close or past 6am. I can’t make sudden moves as he is laying on me, a routine we fell into a few months ago. One that I cherish the most. Each night, usually between 3am and 4am, he calls out to us from his crib. I get up automatically and bring him to our bed. Jaz thought me crazy for doing that, but it felt right to me. At first, I expected him to sleep between us, but then I felt his head poke at me repeatedly until I put him on me. He nestles his head into my neck’s crook, and we sleep. He did that even as a newborn, insistently shoving his head right under my face as if to listen to my heartbeat for him. Which it does. Beat for him. Each thump a reminder of my wish for a child. Each thunk a small daily prayer. Each dadunk a desire to be a father. Every speedy breath a sigh of relief for the life I am blessed with.
He turns his head to get comfortable as if my neck failed to be a good pillow, and so Zyan slides down a bit to my chest. My small pecs appear to be a better buffer. I remind myself to do more pushups so make a bigger rest area for him. Nothing motivates me like being the best dad to my son. Even if it means doing things, I am not particularly good at. Already, I dread his math homework, something I am notoriously bad at. Or sports of any kind (maybe not Racquetball). The images spiral in front of me of the things that I cannot do, but now I must. There was a time they brought me severe anxiety but looking at Zyan, it hits me that we will get through together. My presence and love matter the most, not talent (or so I tell myself). I get to bring in my curiosity into things I have not been curious about before. Or didn’t allow myself that luxury because too old, too Indian, too unathletic, too add in whatever descriptor that I fed myself because I didn’t want to want something I could not have.
But now. Zyan. My fifty-two years are meaningless to an almost 15-month-old. He wants my attention even though my eyes are over five decades old. To him, my past doesn’t matter just me being there. My presence is his present. I must admit, there are days I wonder if I am doing it right or whether I am doing all that can be done. Do I know enough? Who am I to teach him when I have been lost for so long? The imposter syndrome runs strong in me. Should I be talking to him in Punjabi or English or both? Should I just let him play or play with him? Continuously speak to him? Should I pray out loud? Read to him more? Watch all his moments, and not just record them. Questions and worries bounce inside my head while the early morning light streams into our living room in our new home. Another change. Zyan’s home. He will always see this as his first place. It doesn’t matter that Jaz and I have lived in multiple homes.
There are days the responsibility feels heavy. Moments when I get caught up on social media or listening to a song and miss something Zyan does. A heavy guilt hits me to be present, to be here now. A struggle made more difficult with my need to doom scroll even though so much happens in our four walls. While we have been great about limiting his screen time, I now know I need to do the same. My argument was that that his movements become limited, and he just fixates onto the screen. I do the same. The justifications in my head are strong. Oh, he won’t know. He's too young. But inside I know that even if it seems like he doesn’t look, he feels. The excuses scroll across my mind.
Trauma doesn’t need much space to take over the body. Even small slights like inattention for moments can become feelings of abandonment. Like old fossils, it settles down finely becoming a bedrock of resent, hurt, and shame. A hidden history that can guide you for the rest of your life. A big job, this parenting this. Lots of pressure. I think back to my past, but not much comes back. Vague blobs of images come up. Snapshots of stories to me by others. How can something I have no recollection of shape me so deeply? Or maybe it’s a cop out. Easier to blame others for my failures, traumas I self-created not the fault of the others. These thoughts idle in my head even though they don’t feel right. Was my need to be distracted so much. More important than the affect it could have on Zyan? When did a small screen mean more than mornings with Zyan. It hit me. It didn’t if I acknowledged my reasons for doing it. There are times a break mase sense or ve
Watching him play brings me immense joy. He jumps from toy to toy, babbling away. I often wonder what he is saying, and who he is talking to. Perhaps he is saying it out loud to himself as to what he is doing. Or he’s reaching out to me, and I don’t understand. Will that be our future? I know I am spiraling a bit, creating timelines that aren’t there in my head. Days spinning out to a time when Zyan doesn’t care to know me or be around me or thinks anything I say is foolish. The same things I did to Papa. That weights on me. The dismissiveness. The past comes up at me, images hurtling towards me at the slights I threw out, the rolled eyes, the condescension, the times when I thought I knew better because you know college, law school. All paid for it by my family but somehow that idea that never crossed my mind. Narcissism and selfish running deep in me. Will it for Zyan as well?
Regret clouds my brain for a moment until Zyan suddenly whoops for joy for getting a toy to do something, forcing me off the self-pity train. His gurgles fill the room, and the present becomes more important.
“Say Papa, Mama and Bo-Bo” I say, pointing to my lips.
His face lights up. A radiant smile crosses his chunky face. Silence as we face off. Moment pass. I about to repeat myself when he speaks. My breath halts.
“Bo Bo” he says as if to prove that he also won’t listen to me and do his own thing. Papa comes to my mind.
“Cam you sing Mama, Mama, Mama Everyday” my version of what I remember from the Ms. Rachel show.
“Da Da” his rebuts, again showing me who is in charge. Back and forth we go, me determined to make my impression onto him, and him likewise onto me. Its these temporal sparks that show me how much my son means to me. The alone time. Just me and him. Playing. Being grateful. I wonder how many more days I get like these, and I hope for thousands and thousands more. My greed for him insatiable. Never tiresome. Just wondering what we had done to get so lucky finally. There was something to be said about finally acting, and I couldn’t help wondering again why it took us long to get to this point.
Then it hit me. Our past. Her medical condition and the unexpected symptoms from the treatments. My acceptance of whatever she was good with, even if that meant no kids. No regret. No acrimony or blaming. And suddenly now we have mornings with Zyan. It’s hard to remember the days before him as if it all faded to black into the nothingness that my soul felt but never dared shared. Suddenly Zyan whined. Ambled to penguin legged, motions for me to pick him up, forcing my dark thoughts to dissipate. The room shines with his laughter, never mind the sunlight seeping into the living room. That used to be my light but now it’s Zyan.
The savior in my darkness. The proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. I cringe at the cliché but there doesn’t seem to be a way to avoid it. Words used to come easy but easier now to just have placeholders because pain used to move e forward. Now Zyan’s smiling face does. Before you get the wrong idea, my life wasn’t all pain, but a hole lay there for too many years to count of not having a child. The awkward answers we gave when people asked us when we were going to have children since we are both so good with them. Always a moment where our eyes met, and we stumbled through an explanation. Sometimes oh we are busy, sometimes giving them a long story long story version of why we didn’t have kids, and the things we had tried. We’d never said out loud that we had given up, but our actions did. I don’t quite remember why we stopped trying after the IVF failed, and then we looked into adoption. All that appears to be murky to me now that Zyan is here.
Maybe my mornings with Zyan needed the marination of life and time to be the wonderful mental jelly they are or perhaps it was letting go of how it looked to have a kid at 50. Or that I didn’t deserve it, a punishment for my past sins for previous lives as a promoter, event planner, music store planner, record label, tours, or the lack of structure. Perhaps the time now makes sense because my brain unusually behind on things that came natural to others. That feeling of always feeling behind, not mature, not cool, not sporty, not popular, too nerdy, too distracted, too all over the place, too jumpy, too fast, and on and on my insecure mind spits out all the reasons for why I am here. But I am here. Now. That’s what matters. Zyan. Me. A morning routine that began just with me now has a person who defines what perfect mornings are meant to be spent.
My mornings with Zyan are a wonderful reflection of my life. His toothy grins, babbles, coos, shouts for attention, waddles, banging, screaming, running, shaking head, laughter, smiles, kisses, cries, demands, hunger, thirst, drowsiness, need for a pacifier, insistence of being taken to bed all show me my life in a flash. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Gratitude fills our time. I can’t wait to see what comes next into my life.