Dear J,

Until the moment I met you, I could not conceive of you existing, of occupying space separate from us. And the moment you arrived, when your head suddenly burst into the room, your face scrunched and ruddy, I lost my grasp for words.

I tried calling your grandparents, to tell them to come up, but only tears and gasps were left to me. They listened, asked questions, but words did not come to me. It was enough of an invitation though; they soon appeared in the door full of expectation and wonder.

As your grandparents swept into the room, surrounding your mother as you slept on her bare chest, they looked at you, at each other, at me, at you again and again, lost for words. All four of them as new to their role as we were to ours.

Those first hundred or so hours of having you on the outside was one continuous day. Nurses came and went, teaching me how to change a diaper and teaching your mother how to feed you. This was when we learned that your stomach was the size of a marble – that a few drops of milk would fill your belly.

When they had to prick your heel every half an hour for the first twenty-four hours, to check your blood sugar, I begged the nurse to wait an hour between each needle – to give you a rest. I hovered over the cart they placed you in, whispered in your ear so you could hear me over your cries: “Everything is okay. You are okay. I am here.”

It didn’t occur to me until I met you that firstborn children are almost always born to young fathers. There is so much still for me to learn, but I will teach you what I can. One thing I learned during that hundred hour day is that you will suffer and I cannot keep you from it.

But I also have learned, often from your mother, that suffering can be shared. We carry one another’s burdens until it spreads between us like butter over too much bread. I cannot take your suffering from you, but you can give it to me. You can always give it to me.

Yours,

Papa