LJ Archive - 04/08/2005: The Big Picture

(This was my third post. Reading it now, nothing has really changed.)

The past few months have been a blur to me, even more so than the past 6 years that I have come to call “Phase III” of my life. That all seems so trivial, now.

I was dumbfounded when I (that is, we: Anna and I) found out we were pregnant, a little more than a year ago. Torn between tempered excitement and misguided hope that was a belated, heinous April Fool’s joke, I ultimately chose an attitude of hopeful trepidation. “Que sera, sera” or so they say; so why not accept it, plan as appropriate and hope for the best?

I don’t want to sound indifferent now, because nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to my daughter. Bethany is more than I ever could have hoped for. She is living flesh and blood, hopes and dreams and innocence wrapped up in a peaceful bundle, prone to bouts of giggles, flatulence and unfettered wonder. She challenges me to cast selfishness aside and steel myself on the big picture. And yet I still cast a downward glance when confronted with it: The Big Picture.

The B.P. has always been far too abstract for me to comprehend. Oh sure, it was all figured out once! My parents lorded over me that I had it made, and should be grateful. I foolishly bought that con, and even worse, thought that I could make it on my own. But I never knew just what I wanted back then, and I still don’t even today. This isn’t about the house in the suburbs with a picket fence, two cars in the garage, and a riding mower. This isn’t about diplomas and careers and notoriety. This isn’t about faith and salvation and security. Feh! Those are just postcards, and The B.P. looms larger than any marketing spread.

In the blink of an eye I suddenly became responsible for more than I ever imagined. I dwell on this, near comatose, as the day looms near when Anna will suffer the heartbreak of going back to work. The day looms near when we will have to trust people who would have forever been strangers had the State not said they could take our money and our baby each morning. The days loom when I will have to figure out where this money is going to come from, again and again and again. And when that is provided for, by hands either deistic or human, other days lurk larger in the wind.

Did I avert my gaze too long? Has The B.P. forever faded like so much neglected canvas? Were the CDs and electronics and toys, the trips and the cars and the surface fellowship, the self-pity, confusion, and wanderlust worth it? Are they still?

So here I sit, wallowing, writing this as if it’s actually going to change anything. You know what? I still can’t figure out how to be a Father. I watch my wife sing in a sweet voice I never heard, caress and care for my daughter, and it moves me to tears. Bethany lights up and smiles when I get home, and it melts me. I play with her and make her laugh, and in those shining moments The B.P. taunts and flickers attainable. But when she continues to scream in my shoulder because she doesn’t know better, my patience wears thin. How is that possible? What is wrong with me?

In the meantime my brother-in-law commutes back and forth from the farm all the way to Nashville, worn to the bone, hoping and praying that his little girl continues to make progress. He anchors his own B.P. to faith that I envy, and it's ever more clear to him.

In the meantime, good friends from college prepare to bury their long-suffering 40-month old this weekend. They were incredible, courageous stewards. Their B.P. assured her the best possible care, always, until the Maker called her home once again.

In the meantime, I and people I should know better go about our lives, mutually oblivious to triumphs and failures, successes and sorrows; attentive to ignorance and dismissive of wisdom. Hindsight is a spiteful bastard.

I wish I could annihilate the fog, because it shouldn’t be this way.

And The Big Picture taunts, obscured in the canvas.