by Rob Azevedo ’94
Rob Azevedo ’94 and his newborn daughter, Danielle. Photo courtesy of the Azevedos.
Suddenly, I was looking down at a greasy little something that resembled a junior-sized Mr. Magoo. She was spectacular. She arrived in this world covered in love, and screaming so hard her little tongue shivered wildly as the nurses cleared her nose and throat of mucus. Born just five days before Christmas 2003, my daughter, Danielle, has managed to shake the foundation of my existence like nothing I’ve ever known.
The second act of my life has just begun. Danielle Jessica is playing the lead.
Throughout my wife’s pregnancy, friends of mine described the birth of their children as “incredible,” “monumental,” “the most fantastic string of minutes ever imagined.”
“I need that rush,” I’d tell them. “I need that sense of astonishment that tears down old walls.”
Admittedly, my spirituality has needed a tuneup. Lacking faith in all things that I don’t know has been a common theme for 31 years. “Maybe this will wake me up,” I thought. But witnessing Danielle’s birth didn’t feel the way I thought it would. I thought it would be groundbreaking, dramatic and mind alerting. Although my heart pounded straight out of my skin, no tears fell from my eyes when she made her entrance.
“You rotten stone!” I berated myself. Everything just went too fast. I couldn’t get my footing.
In the delivery room, dressed in white coveralls and a paper-thin cap, I once again played the dunce of the classroom. As a busy hum of terminology filled the room, I felt like a fool, totally lost.
I wouldn’t say I was unappreciative of what was going on. I knew that by nine that same morning, I’d no longer be a boy. I’d be a father, a man.
Still, as Steinbeck once wrote, “Woman got all her life in her arms. Man got it all in his head.” My head was full.
I was too concerned for my wife, Flower, who lay on the gurney to my right. She was zoned out and confused, and her caesarean section still had to be sewn shut. Suddenly, I was looking down at a greasy little something that resembled a junior-sized Mr. Magoo. She was spectacular. Fully pink and covered in wrinkles, Danielle was my new life. Still, my eyes were dry as a bone.
When my wife got to the recovery room, she was as courageous as ever. Dripped out on Demerol with a six-inch incision across her belly, she managed to show her new baby just what love feels like.
“She’s perfect,” she said, holding Danielle tight to her chest.
That night, long after family and friends left the hospital, a minor breakdown occurred. My wife, still wobbly from the drugs, lay on the bed in a haze as Danielle fell into a perfect rage.
I changed her, rocked her, kissed her brow repeatedly-and still the crying continued.
When a nurse came in the room to check my baby’s vital signs, I left the hospital to get some air. Sitting in my truck in an empty parking lot in Saugus, I called my brother in California for some advice.
“I’m not sure if I’m cut out for this,” I told him. “I never even cried!”
In less than 10 minutes, my brother Mike explained that my reaction to the birth wasn’t to be graded. “There is no right or wrong way to act,” he said. “Just be yourself.”
On the drive back to the hospital, I put on a Springsteen song called “Living Proof.” In the song, he sings about long droughts before a hard rainfall. It was then I realized my role as a father wasn’t to cry. It was to weather the storm of emotions entering into my heart and to be strong for my new family.
To be a man.
Rob Azevedo ’94 is a freelance writer living in Melrose, Mass. He is a regular contributor to the Boston Globe, where this essay first appeared.
