Relativity

Becoming a father in the “September” of my years has created its own set of oddities. Among them: newly defined lines of relationships within the family.

I was married to my first wife for 22 years and we raised three children: a girl and two boys. Three years into my new marriage my twin daughters arrived. This redrew some old boundaries.

My youngest son, who used to be the youngest child, is now the “middle” kid. My daughter and sons now have something they never had before: little sisters. And where there had always been “my three kids” there are now “my five kids.”

The age differences are also a little bizarre. My first three children were 24, 26 and 28 years old when their new siblings were born, so there will be a generational gap between the two “batches.”

In addition, my two children living farther away—on the other side of the country, in fact—are understandably ambivalent to the idea of my suddenly having two infants who threaten to occupy my time and attention, coupled with the further skepticism that comes from the concept of having half-sisters—siblings who share one parent instead of two. My former middle child—my older son—and his wife have accepted the new arrangement more warmly, partly because they live close enough to visit on a regular basis, and partly because they are a couple who anticipate having a family of their own shortly and may be more receptive to the idea of a growing and evolving family.

Personally, I have discovered that a truth I learned many years ago still holds.

When I had one child and we were expecting a second, I wondered if I would ever be able to love that second child as much as I did the first. When the second little one arrived—and later the third—I learned there was no problem at all. Love is one of those qualities that, ironically, grows more abundant the more we expend it. If anything, each new addition to the family added a new dimension to the affection I felt toward each child.

The same thing is happening again. As I re-experience the joys, as well as the challenges, of fatherhood, I find myself remembering tender moments from my first time around, and I feel even closer to my older children.

Hopefully they will all tap into this curious and poignant phenomenon of renewed love that comes around only rarely in life.

It may be true that we can’t pick our families, but we can choose to focus on the joyous aspects of kismet and grow from the sudden outpouring of love that accompanies new life.