The Runtyun

She was born the same month that I was, forty years later though. When the excitement of the birth was over and the baby was clean and wrapped up in her birthing cloths, when I stopped feeling woozy and found a certain control over my emotions. The nurse handed me the cooing little bundle–my daughter.

She was warm in my arms. All I could see were her eyes, they were so big. I know that at only a few minutes of age there is not very much for a baby to reference, yet she looked straight at me and she had me. At the time I did not know the adventures that I would go through as a father. The things I would endure as a parent and man. At the time all I saw were eyes and a bright red pudgy face and a little bubble of saliva at the corner of her mouth.

I put her down on the birthing table and just stared. What had I done? This little creature, perfect with ten toes and ten fingers, one little head that looked too big for that little body. What had I done? I put my hand out to her to see what she would do. Nothing. I guess she could not see–being only few minutes old. My finger brushed her hand, she did not jump, but reached out and gripped my finger. She was strong!

She would have to be strong coming into the life I was involved in. We went through a few struggles before getting to the somewhat stable life we live now. During her toddler years she was very out going. Her smile in the morning was brighter than the sun at sunrise. It carried me through some of my darkest days.

Now she is so wise, yet strangely naive. She can understand things beyond her years, yet in another minute ask a question so innocent that I can only wonder. The Runtyun is growing into a fine person despite my parenting skills.

I have stumbled through this whole parenting experiment and you know what? She is doing pretty well despite me.


Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Ten years ago this weekend



It had been a rough patch, those last few months. Maybe though, things were beginning to look up. I had a new job, The Runtyun’s mother seemed to have a good position. The Runtyun herself, was my pride and smile. Even the space shuttle, Columbia was completing another successful mission. Little did I know, like the shuttle, my life was going to crash and burn.
Like most people, I did not really know what the shuttle was doing up there in space, nor did I really understand the calamity my life was crashing into. The shuttle was coming down that day and I was watching T.V. idly passing time before work while waiting for my babies' mother to come home and take the dayshift while I worked away at the new job.
She was late, very late. The shuttle had gone missing and I was missing from my new job. The Runtyun was sleeping away, I could hear her soft breathing while updates were coming in. I would go over to her trying to find calm from her sweet and innocent slumber despite the inner flame burning my life away.
In a way I was a little luckier than the rest of the world, I had an idea where she was and it was not at work, while every one else could only wonder and worry about the missing shuttle. 
Yes, it was ten years ago, on the same day the shuttle Columbia developed a hole in it’s wing disintegrating at 17,000 miles per hour, though my life took longer  to crumble and burn. Ye,t like the Phoenix, well maybe not as dramatically, I was able to re-incarnate into a better person, a more mature parent.
My destiny became more real to me when the shuttle crashed. I could see the direction my life was taking, yet like the shuttle, I was headed down a course that seemed inevitable. Destiny, it seemed, had taken control for the moment. Like the shuttle, my life became a fiery testament to misdirection. Hot emotions and flames of stone took over for a time. Yet, after a time of tempering and rebirth, I was lucky to find myself.
Now, I am the man and father I am supposed to be.