“I’m not your son.. I’m Dukan”
To say I am retardedly happy with my youngest son would be the biggest lie conceivable. I simply cannot get enough of him. He is SUCH a pain, but loves doing it. The quote I put as the articule title is what he told me last night.. He says things like that a lot, which seems really interesting to me (but to me, everything he does is interesting).
He paused a long time when I called him son.. then said that. No one in my family anywhere knows where his nickname “duke” came from, or its many forms (dukan, dukie, “THE DUKE”.. etc). While I admit I feel it is dumb, seeing him and watching him grow seems like the only thing of any real importance in my life anymore. The honor that he bestows upon me by just “being” is almost limitless. As a three year old now, he almost never wants to just cuddle up to me. On the rare occasions when he does, I feel as if I have never held something of such value. That the love I have for him flows from me to him when I hold him. It is almost a real sensation. Not saying I don’t love and impose mandatory hugs on my other 2 kids.. but something is different about him. I am not typically a believer in this kind of thing but i want to say its because he really is mine. Megan and Glenn are mine as much as they are anyone else’s.. and thats a fact. That in and of itself doesn’t make them mine though. I wonder sometimes if this feeling I get for holding him is something all parents get. I wonder if my wife, who is mother to all my kids, feels this same feeling or if there is something more.. something deeper that a mother would feel. Most mothers just out of hand say there is something deeper, but most mothers think their kid is cutest.. which is obviously wrong.. Mine is.
*** Warning: those not into God or other people’s religous beliefs should stop here ***
I always wanted to be a Father. Always. Nothing in my life ever hurt me on the same level as not having a father around. As not being able to go to “father son pic-nic’s” or anything like that. My overwhelming desire to be a Father was my absolution.. my evidence that I turned out well without a father. Not well.. but as good as anyone with a father. That I would not leave my family under any circumstances (except death, cause really.. thats not my fault). It became such a concentrated issue in my life that I thought perhaps it fell under idolitry (sp?). I wrote it off at that point.. Wrote off the posibility that I would ever have a child of my own, that my other kids would be everything I could ever have. I grew to accept this.. That the only fatherhood I would know would come in times that their “real dad” didn’t want them, or couldn’t have them. In a future post I’ll talk about the problems of being the step-dad..
Anyway, had this happened to be my fate.. I was accepting it. I wanted a son more than I wanted my next breath.. but if its not God’s will, it doesn’t happen. Then things started building up.. Debbie got pregnant (fingers and toes crossed).. Time went by.. went to Dr and found out it is a boy (fingers/toes/arms/legs/eyes crossed).. Then he was born. My son. My only thought was that somehow God had prepared me in such a way that he would not be a distraction from God but be a method of keeping me close to God. He is just that. I cannot hold him for 1 second without giving thanks. I can’t think about him without almost getting misty with my joy.. my opportunity God gave ME to be his father. But more than that, the opportunity He gave me to be Duke’s Daddy.