A few nights ago I went without sleep. It wasn't by choice - I didn't stay up on a meditation vigil or some other marathon of inner work. I wasn't burning the midnight oil writing an inspired story. No heartfelt and revealing conversation was shared with another kindred spirit. Though it would seem an obvious reason for many, I wasn't suffering from insomnia.
So, why was I up all those hours stretching from ten, when I tried to bed down, straight on to six in the morning? Two words: sick child.
I want to be fair to the little one who suffered more than I did, she wasn't exactly sick, she was teething. My nine-month old baby girl's first tooth was pushing through her bottom gums, and it caused her endless discomfort. The pain seemed to intensify at night and prevented her from relaxing into a deeper sleep - one which would last more than a few minutes here and there.
After crying in her crib, I brought her to the bed where I lay her down in between me and my wife. She tossed and turned, her short bursts of crying were interspersed by even shorter periods of restless moaning.
She tried to pull anything within grasp into her mouth to chew and soothe the gums. After half an hour of this disturbance, my wife said into the dark, "I need my sleep to be able to nurse her. You take her." I picked up my baby and carried her downstairs.
The following hours are a blur to me. I remember holding my crying daughter to my chest, pacing the room with her, putting my finger into her mouth to chew on, and lying down to rest a little with her on my stomach. She didn't stop fussing, and I continually had to change positions and tactics. In the middle of the night I took her to nurse, and then went back to our routine. I couldn't make and drink a coffee with her in my arms, which wasn't needed as her cries did the job of keeping me up.
When the dim light of pre-dawn began to reveal itself I returned her to my wife for their first nursing of the day. At that point I collapsed into the bed. A quarter of an hour later, with a stronger light entering the room and myself about to plunge into a deep slumber, I heard the familiar ring of my four-year old son's first call of the day: "Daddy!"
Not every night of parenthood is like this, and if it were, maybe we would have ended as a species many millennia ago. Being a parent, means that you are no longer in control.
When I became a father I leaned very quickly - and not by choice - that my time was no longer my own. At all. It began with the sleepless nights (believe me, my wife has had it much worse!), and continued with all the letting go I have had to do when my children do not 'behave' according to plan. What plan? Whose plan? My plan, of course.
I was late for work and I had to get my son to day care. I plopped him onto the stairs to put his shoes on, the final stage before we're out the door. He started picking at his socks and complaining that they were not on tightly enough. I wanted to just throw the shoes on and carry him out, but I took a breath and adjusted his socks.
That's all he needed, but I had to let go of my plan, my rush, to respond to him and his simple need. Nothing magical, just a little shift.
A single breath. In that breath I let him into my world a little more. In that same breath I let out my own ideas of what the world should be.
There is a haiku by the renown Japanese poet Issa which helps me from time to time:
A world of trials
And if the cherry blossoms
It simply blossoms.
The trials of the world are endless, and endlessly changing. In fact, they appear from moment to moment, and we never know what the next one will be.
In the midst of the trials there is incredible beauty, simply appearing as the nature of the world. No need to seek it out, it's right here with us.
I don't mean after the challenge or trial is overcome, but in the very midst of the trial. If I pay attention then I notice the cherry blossoms, but if I focus on the gathering storm, that's what I'll see. It's not even about one or the other, but the storm and the blossoms are inherently one.
The struggle I have with being a father and the boundless love I feel for my children are one. This is the deep truth of the haiku, there are the challenges, and the flowers simply blossom. It's one life.
When I have the insight again and again that my time is not my own, and I have to answer to my kids' needs, the greatest challenge is to simply let go of my ideas of what should happen. I don't see it as a self sacrifice, but that in my connection to my children my needs and their needs join, like the storm and the blossoms.
In the very letting go is a finding, so that when I release a more narrow idea of what should happen and how the world should run, I find a more expanded reality.
When my idea of time, of myself, and of my children drop away, even for a single moment, then reality as it is appears in a flash. For me, it is much more rewarding than I anticipated, and it may be nothing more than the great possibility of taking a single breath and putting a sock on a little foot again.
A blossom appears, followed by another breath, another moment, and another blossom. I let go of my time as my own, and this allows me to join with my children, not on their terms or mine, but simply in the moment which presents itself. It is ours.