I feel very blessed today. I hate to admit it but the majority of my friends are raising kids alone in this world. Do I happen to have a knack for picking ball-busting, Lesbians as friends? Perhaps, but the reality is that I was blessed from day one. You see, when I got pregnant with the boy child, I had only known his father for 5 months. That's not "dating for 5 months", I mean it had been just about 5 months from the time I had met him at a raging Phat Tuesday party, until the day we found ourselves leaning over a pee stick (or three). Not the normal American courtship if you ask me. Or, maybe it is.
The night we found out, I gave him the choice. I said that I wanted to keep the baby and he was welcome to cut and run. I didn't want anything from him that he was not wanting to give. As I sat there pondering my options I envisioned myself tired and overworked at the local Waffle House, while my mother, who I will have moved in with, makes my life a living hell.
But then he surprised me. He told me he was with me and that he wanted to do this whole parent thing. We got married one the one year anniversary of out meeting and I was 8 months pregnant.
I am not going to say that it was easy. We fought like rabid cats and dogs over a steak, as many 21-year-old will do when pushed to the edge. But somehow we have made it. And we have grown. We rarely fight now and have slowly fallen in love and become best friends.
He is the Father of my children and loves them more than life itself. His eyes light up when he sees them and his smile is one of genuine delight. He could never leave them and he can't even stand for us to be gone for the night. He is a good man. He is a rare man.
Whenever I am trying to explain how much he loves me and his kids my mind always comes back to the tale of my piano. We moved into a home next to my grandmothers house. It was long ago abandoned, but it did contain my 1953 Kimball Piano with a working Lowery Organo (I'll write more about this one day). The damned thing weights close to 600 lbs. I decided that to leave it in my grandmothers house would mean certain death for it. I asked this darling man to move it over to our new house.
It took close to three hours. He would lay down a board, scoot the piano on and then lay down another. Snails move faster. He moved it across the yard, up the steps and into my bedroom. He also swore that he would never move it again. He has moved it 4 times since.
I don't know if my kids will ever understand how lucky they are to have father that loves them so much, or if they will one day break his heart. But I do know that they are blessed. They have a Daddy that would bend time for them. Even if they never know. I know how lucky they are. And plan to remind them every day.
