He is so beautiful it breaks my heart

[After working on this piece in some form or another for the past half-year, I finally offer it to the reading public. I considered back-dating it to sometime when these thoughts mind seem to "fit" into some kind of context, but then I thought, no: it's done, it's new, and you should read it right now. Enjoy.]

I have a son. Not particularly unusual, that, but I do want to make a big deal of it. I love him. I was certain that I would, even though things did not turn out as I had expected.

We had planned on a daughter, or at least I had, since I knew my wife dearly desired a girl for our first-born. She herself is the fourth generation of first-born daughters, and I wanted more than I have ever wanted anything for her to be able to continue that wonderful legacy.

But it was not to be, as she had suspected all along. And so, having planned for eight months or so that it would be a tiny daughter we would be welcoming into our lives, I had absolutely no idea how to react, how to feel, when a little boy emerged at the end of that heartbreakingly-long day.

My first reaction was acute disappointment for my wife's unrealised dream, followed almost immediately by overwhelming guilt for not being able to give her what I thought she wanted most. I was exhausted anyway at this point, so beyond exhausted into some other place that this additional weight of negative emotion was literally incapacitating.

But then I held him.

Those of you who know me will know that I am not the most masculine of men; aside from my natural ability to mimic the sound of flatulence with my armpit and my occasional urge to lie shivering in the woods and slay large gallinaceous birds with my own hands, I am somewhat lacking in stereotypical maleness, at least as commonly defined in this country we call ours. So the desire for a son was not a strong one for me. Yes, I wanted a child (at this point) and children (perhaps one at a time, like an installment plan). I looked forward to teaching them about life and the world and God, sharing with them the things and activities that most bring me joy, and generally sharing and facilitating their respective paths through life. All pretty non-gender-specific dreams. The whole "carrying on the family name" thing was pretty far down on the list of things that ever cross my mind; a quaint and useless fixation at best these days, and especially so for me, given the fact that my surname is an (apparently arbitrary) fabrication of the United States government, or some impatient agent thereof who could not be bothered to ascertain the actual names of yet another clan of Norwegian immigrants.

So I didn't want a son and heir. But there he was, and as I met him for the first time, my emotions were overwhelmingly, well, paternal. I kept saying to myself, over and over again in my head (although I was so tired at that point I could well have been saying it out loud for all I know) "I have a son." I have a son. I have a son.

I love him. I gaze at him now as he lies sleeping and wonder what will become of him, what amazing things he will see and do in his life, almost all of which stretches out into the dizzying distance beyond my poor sight. Will he love me, or resent me? Can I ever hope to be such a father as to deserve such a marvel for my son?