Author: John Lucas Kovasckitz
When Danielle first told me she was pregnant, the world had a new glow. Everything was brighter, more full of possibility. Being a father was the thing that I wanted to be most in the world. I started writing poetry daily to our child, and I felt a love that I had never known before.
When Danielle started to realize that we were losing our baby, the world stopped spinning. I tried to remember how to breathe as I sped towards Wal-Mart after midnight to get supplies for my bleeding wife. I remember thinking of course. Of course. God takes away what you desire the most.
God said [to Abraham], "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."
And I asked God why in the car that night, but I didn’t get an answer. I still don’t have one. But I know that God was with me. I know that God was with us when Danielle and I held each other and wept that night.
Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.
When Danielle told me that she was pregnant again, the glow did not return. The poetry did not return. I did not feel much besides the fear to love again - a great Numbness. Even as Danielle’s belly slowly grew, and I could feel my boy kicking, I did not truly feel him. I could press my ear to Danielle’s womb and hear my son’s heartbeat, but it would not register emotionally to the extent it once did...when we had no visible or audible clues of the life inside.
I don’t know why God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, only to step in at the last moment. I know a lot of easy answers why it could be...answers I learned growing up, but that don’t quite hold true these days. I especially don’t know why God doesn’t step in at the last moment. I don’t know why my friend Amanda lost her sister this past year. I don’t know why so many horrible things happen on this earth - things that are in our collective control as human beings and things that are completely outside of it.
But I do know somehow there can be no life without death. I know that somehow God is within it all, within us all, inviting us to be born again. And again. And again.
I’ve been thinking about that phrase a lot lately: being born again. Growing up within Christian culture, being born again was perceived by many to be a quick and formulaic prayer to somehow immediately enter into a relationship with God. But when I think of the stages of birth and life, being born is anything but quick and simple. Saying nothing of the metaphors of conception, it takes about nine months to knit together a human being that comes wailing and gasping for life, confused and covered in blood and water. This human being is unable to see much past its own nose, and cannot speak nor understand much besides touch and warmth and connection.
And yet, within that baby is held the miracle of the entire universe. A reminder, an invitation, to be born again: to see again, to experience everything anew. To trade doubt for wonder. To believe in magic again.
I have started to let myself be born again. I have started to let myself enter into into the womb with my boy. I have started to allow myself to truly feel him kick and to hear his heartbeat. I have started to read him stories and to tell him jokes. To call him by name. I have allowed myself to weep with the joy and weight of a father for his son. I have started to allow myself to love my yet unborn son deeply, though I have known the fragility of loss.
Tonight Danielle read me a short story about a boy who asked his mom to try and have another child after a miscarriage, because that baby has become a ‘spirit baby’ and can get back in the front of the line to be born again. He knew this to be the way it worked because he also was a spirit baby. It sounds true enough to me.
Maybe our boy, our little Noah, has been waiting at the front of the line the whole time for us. Maybe before time itself was born. It sounds true enough to me.
//
I want to be a really good father.
And I think my desires are intertwined with those of the ultimate Father, for all of us. I think my heart for my boy is somehow a reflection of His heart for all of us. A lot of my theology and metaphors have changed over the years, and answers don’t come as easy as they used to. But the picture of a good Father still holds true for me; a father that hikes up his robes and runs to embrace his child he thought was lost.
Something that I wanted to do for my boy before I met him face-to-face was to write him vows...a way to, in faith, hike up my robes and run to embrace a child that already holds my heart.
I ask you, my friends, to hold me to these vows to my son. I ask you, my friends, to come alongside of Danielle and I as we are born again together with the life of our son. Our little Noah. Our little mighty wizard.
The rest is for him.
Noah Albus -
My boy,
My son.
I have waited to be your dad for a long time.
Before I have seen you I have loved you.
Before I have held you, I have accepted every future perceived flaw and everything that might one day try to shame you. Soon you will come into the world naked and bloody and perfect in every way.
You have been One with your Mother for awhile now. I have felt you kick, and I have pressed my ear to your Mother’s belly to hear your heartbeat.
But soon I too will hold you. I will hold your fragile body in my fragile arms, and our two fragile bodies will become One...as strong as an oak planted beside still waters.
Nothing can tear you away from me.
Nothing that you do or do not do.
Nothing that you do or do not say.
You cannot lose my love.
Although, my love is imperfect. Sometimes I will lose my patience with you. I will disappoint you many times. I am new at being a father.
Even if I become an old hat at being a dad, I will fail again and again. I will do many things wrong.
But I promise to keep trying. I promise to do my best. I promise to never give up on being a better dad for you. I promise to be teachable. I promise to listen to you.
You and I will always be One, but I promise to let you become your own person. I promise to let you make mistakes, and I promise to also do my best to point the way forward by example. I promise to do my best to teach you about God and life and death and this world and our place within it, but I suspect that you will teach me much more than I could ever teach you.
I cannot promise that you will not endure great pain in this world. My Noah, I wish it were not so. I wish I could shield it from you. I cannot promise that I will even share the majority of your life with you, or even tomorrow...but you and I will always be One. I do not know how to describe this, or to begin to prove this, but I know it to be true.
For what life I have with you on this earth, I promise to cherish every minute of it. I promise to lean into wonder instead of doubt and fear. You have already made me a better man.
Noah, I give you my love.
Everything in this life that I give up for you, I do it gladly. May you surpass me in every way. May your kindness stretch far beyond my reach. May your life be a seed that grows a forest. May you love deeply. May you dream in boldness, and walk in the riches of faith.
I am proud to be your father. You are my great treasure.
-Your dad