Letters to Jory

Inspired by love, Motivated by legacy

Letter #4 - No one Prepares

 

There’s no preparation for the moment your baby is born.

No one told me anything about how your head would be shaped or that there would be blood and film everywhere.

No one told me you’d come out looking like a scene from the movie “Alien”

No one told me the second your lungs filled with air and I heard you cry that I’d be overcome with emotion.

You made the grandest of entrances on August 1st. I remember it was after 5 PM and I had the thought cross my head for some reason that I hoped the doctor was still in the office; it never occurred to me that the midwife that would deliver you was already there just waiting for you to come.

I was ready but I so wasn’t.

I wasn’t ready to feel the depth of love I feel for you today; the kind that makes it so hard and so painful when I try FaceTiming you and you don’t or won’t talk to me because you’re busy, far away, distracted or uninterested. Like yesterday. Like Christmas Day, like a lot of this week. I wasn’t ready for waking up in the middle of the night in sweats from having nightmares about things that might be causing you hurt or discomfort because of my inability to stop thinking about you every second of the day.

I wasn’t ready to share you.

With your mom yes, but not with another man. I always wanted a family. I know now that not all families are constructed the same. My family consists of me and you. I wouldn’t have thought of a better combination. It’s important for me that you know that we are fighters.

Me and you.

The world is not the prettiest or safest of places. People are selfish and people will always look out for themselves, regardless of the casualties. It’s important you never forget how much I love you. I fight daily to try to remind you of that, I try to talk to you as much as I can, even when situations or people don’t allow it. I fight to remind myself that you living in Utah with your mom for now is what you need, even tho it’s not what I want.

I miss you every moment I can’t hold you.

It haunts me to not open the door to my home and hear your little voice scream “daddy” but I am building a life and the best version of myself and a future for the both of us.
There’s no preparation for the anguish of being separated from the one person that you feel is the very oxygen you breathe. There’s no preparation for suffocating.

There’s also no way to combat or shut off the love and dedication I have for you.

In Hebrew, the name Jory means “God will uplift”

I don’t know if there is a god, I don’t know if he IS real, what it is he does; but I do know that you at least for me, you always uplift.

Jory. God will uplift.

 

-Dad