The Rover does... fatherhood
The Rover does... fatherhood
In which the world is soon to be blessed/cursed with my offspring. Godspeed.
When we launched this project last summer, I justified the financial risk by declaring “you’re only young and childless once.”
Be careful what you commit to the public record.
We found out how prophetic that statement was in a clinic off Oka Road this week. As it happened, we were just down the road from the North Shore bungalow my brother and I grew up in. He stood outside the clinic with his children, who would periodically knock on the window demanding a closer look at the action.
Inside the pastel office, Marie-Pier held my hand and we squinted at the grainy monitor, looking for a sign of life. Nothing would ever be the same again.
“It’s like a little kitten,” MP said, her eyes welling.
There it was, a 13-week-old fetus, its growing body no bigger than a crab apple with a beating heart at its core. The child looks more aquatic than human but it is ours now. Hers, mine, yours.
My sister-in-law, Daphne, conducted the ultrasound. We all cried a bit.
We didn’t plan on becoming parents but something changes when the woman you love pees on a stick and you realize it’s no longer just theoretical. A small piece of us is living inside her. I hope it doesn’t inherit my grandfather Charlie’s webbed feet.
Of course, I’m afraid. Or anxious. Or guilty. All three maybe. It’s hard to tell them apart.
Not so long ago, I was a drunk and a thoughtless man who cared more about being liked by strangers than treating those closest to me with love. I ruined relationships, I hurt people, I failed at the most basic parts of adulthood. It took a near-death experience and some brain-altering medication to get the ball rolling. But even then I continued walking down a destructive path.
Things got better. I learned about how trauma rewires a child’s brain but that even a damaged mind can also be moulded back to something less combustible. It helps when you start to say things out loud, things that were done to you and things you did to others.
It helps to meet someone who teaches you it's okay to be you and not some person you think they think you should be. God that’s exhausting, isn’t it?
I suspect that guilt never completely goes away. Sort of like a scar that protrudes from your flesh years after you tore it on a chunk of pavement. The skin still tingles when you rub your fingers on it. That’s okay. Scars are part of healing.
Where was I? Ah yes, busy making this new life about me.
We tend to exaggerate the negative effects we have on others, as though the power of our failures somehow outweighs their ability to persevere. Once when I was busy sulking about some past mistakes, my friend Megan told me something I’ll never forget.
“Don’t think you’re so important that you can fuck someone else’s life up all on your own,” she said. “You’re not that special.”
I am not afraid of messing a child’s life up.
For one thing, the child will be born of a woman for whom my admiration grows daily. For another, I am surrounded by family and friends that will help us figure out what to do with the child’s feces (do you wipe the diaper directly into the toilet???). It is no small comfort to know I live near an older brother who is the kind of dad I can only aspire to be. And of course there’s my own father who spent far too many Saturday mornings driving me to tournaments where he could sit and pretend to like basketball. I’d be lucky to measure up to either of them.
Finally, I learned recently that people can change, that circumstances in this life can shake us to our core and force us to be our best selves.
That’s what Marie-Pier’s love has taught me. I used to be sad that it took me so long to realize this. But that’s just how things needed to play out, I guess.
The world is burning and we will bring someone new into the fire — not so that it can continue smouldering but so that I can be reminded why this work is so important.
Not the work of journalism or democracy. Just the revolutionary act of being good people — parents, children, siblings, cousins, neighbours and most importantly friends.
I can’t promise I won’t lose a finger or two in a fireworks-related explosion or that we won’t crash a few bicycles on improvised jumps. But I can promise that I will do my best to rise to the occasion.
And when I fail, I know you’ll all be there to help me get back up or find whatever digit I lost in a knife-juggling accident.
Your friend (and a future father),
Chris
***
Today we have a bit of a twofer here at the Rover.
Just before this newsletter went out, my latest article was published. It’s the second part of what I learned on my latest trip to Val-d’Or, and it’s a hopeful read. Despite an ongoing court fight, four Anishinaabe communities in Quebec have succeeded in building their own youth protection service from the ground up. It’s working, and it’s keeping kids in their own communities. It’s a model that other jurisdictions should be following.
When it comes to homelessness, there are also plans underway for a new transitional housing facility in the gold mining town, even if the Quebec government is delaying and denying funding they already promised. So maybe the story isn’t purely hopeful, but then what is? Bad stuff keeps coming, but good things push up through that mountain of shit like tulips reaching for the sun. We need to take the time to smell those flowers. Progress is slow, often achingly, painfully slow. But it is happening.
I hope you’ll read all about it.
❤️
Tito!!!!! Excuse my delay, but congrats to you and the delightful MP. 💕 You'll do great.