About nine months ago I received a early morning phone call from the woman that I had been seeing. Nothing in her voice sounded unhappy, or worried, or even overly stressed.
She told me about a dream she had. We did our usual cooing at each other, wishing we were in bed together.
"I have something to tell you, wanna guess what it is?" I threw out a couple funny guesses, but I knew. She was pregnant.
We spent the rest of the morning talking back and forth about names, Sherpas, and me trying to quell her fears about the future. We talked until I had to go to work, but we planned on seeing each other when she got off, on my lunch break.
She came in and I couldn't help myself to rub her belly. I kissed her and told her how happy I was. And I was. On my way into work and talking to my boss he asked, "why are you so damn happy?" I told him that I think I'm going to be a daddy. He inquired as to who it was. I said, "I don't wanna jinx it. But I'm happy."
So there we were. I asked how she was feeling, if she needed anything. My friend showed up at that time so the three of us hung out outside talking. My best friend none the wiser that inside her was the start of a new life. He wouldn't find out until later that night when I just couldn't contain myself.
She blogged about it. She was freaking out a bit, but holding steady on having it. The next day I had planned on going out to spend some real time with her, but she cancelled telling me that she needed some space. That was the last thing I wanted to hear. I knew space was the last thing that the situation needed. In my mind I just wanted to start. I wanted to start planning, start talking about the future, our future as a family.
That's when shit hit the fan. She started railing against everything. Against me, against having the baby. She stopped talking to me. And here I was, realistically thinking about all the possibilities of a future, reading about what was happening with her body, thinking about living situations. I thought about our trips to baby stores, I thought about the day she conceived, when we talked about raising a family over lunch at potbelly's. How in love we were that day.
I did some serious soul searching during the time we didn't talk. I thought long and hard about whether I was up to the task of all of this. Could I be a good father, could I provide? The next 9 months would have been a bitch emotionally as well. Her divorce, her family, my family, where would we live? Could I live in the same house she occupied with her husband?
I knew I'd do anything and everything possible for her. To be the emotional support she needed. She'd want for nothing. I decided then and there that even though it wasn't preferable, it's what I wanted. I mean shit, I wasn't planned. I think about the fact that my mother in the end sacrificed her life by having me. Literally. Without me around she probably would not have stayed with my dad.
But the quiet was unbearable. I had absolutely no idea if she wanted to hold on to talk to me, if she was still deciding, or if the whole thing was over. Not only did I worry about the pregnancy, I was wrecked over our relationship.
So I sent texts on occasion, all the while trying to give her space. In hindsight I should have been a little more vocal. But I had no idea on how stuff was gonna play out.
I reached a point of such great despair, that I did the unthinkable for me. I stepped foot inside a church. There's one by the old apartment that still has it's doors open 24 hours a day. So one night after midnight I went in. I lit a candle for the life inside of her. I prayed that for once in my life god or whatever entity up there would smile down on me and grant me just this one thing. I spent a few nights there soul searching, trying to make sense of everything. For some kind of peace.
She asked to meet me by the lake to tell me that she had ended things. I was upset. Mainly that I wasn't given a say. But a say wasnt my right. It was her life too, and it was a sacrifice I couldn't expect her to make.
What happened for both of us at that moment was that there was a sense of relief. Not for what had transpired, but relief that even after that there we were, rolling on the cement, laughing and kissing. Making more plans for the future.
This Christmas would have been when the baby would have been due. I think about how great, and how hard life would be. But I also think about how rewarding it would be as well. But most of all I think about how much I miss her. Because what I lost wasnt one thing that happened, what I really lost was opportunities both past and future, and the one person I wanted to share them with.
If you truly want to hurt a person that's been hurt in the past, you don't just attack them straight away. You show them everything they ever wanted out of life, make them believe it's theirs and then take it away from them.
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