Thoughts of Onetime Future Father

Things I imagined doing:

Being in the waiting room and hearing the doctor say, “Congratulations! You have a son.”

Rushing into the room to see wife and baby and explaining to her once again why I wouldn’t have been able to remain upright during the birth.

Promising to be a perfect father, copying all the things my dad did right and avoiding all the things he did wrong.

Handing out cigars to friends at the office.

Carrying him around the house at 3 a.m. and wondering how in the world I’d ever make it to work six hours later.

Being disgusted at the sight of his first “full diaper.”

Quickly learning what everyone says is true: You get used to diapers in a hurry.

Coming up with a pet phrase that he’d repeat over and over. Probably something silly for a 2-year-old to say, like, “Hey, buster.”

Making sure he liked to read. Making sure I was home when he read his first sentence.

Walking him to his first day of kindergarten and wishing I could explain to him in ways a 5-year-old could understand that there’s nothing wrong with being a little scared and confused.

Telling him stories before he went to bed.

Convinced that it’s something every father should do for a son, teaching him how to catch and throw a ball, preferably left-handed.

Lathering up in the morning and letting him watch me shave, like my dad used to, and then slapping some after-shave on his 8-year-old face.

Agreeing with his assessment that the girls in his third-grade class may well be acting dopey whenever he’s around, but telling him in no uncertain terms that he doesn’t hit girls under any circumstances.

Promising myself that I would never ever yell at him during Little League games.

Taking him back to the small town where I grew up and letting him walk along dirt roads in the country and embrace the quietness.

Requiring him to take piano lessons, but telling him he can drop out after six lessons if he didn’t like it.

Yelling at him during Little League games.

Introducing him to my Beach Boys records and reliving for him how I discovered them as a 13-year-old boy and never got tired of listening to them.

Fighting every instinct in my body when telling him it’s OK if he doesn’t like the Beach Boys.

Encouraging him to be friends with girls in high school, while hoping and praying he wouldn’t be as socially inept as I was.

Teaching him how to knot a tie.

Making sure someone taught him how to dance.

Somehow, someway ensuring that he treat people with respect.

Explaining the infield fly rule.

Warning him that he comes from a long line of yakkers and that listening is a strong personality trait.

Girding myself to accept the fact he wouldn’t turn out exactly as I had planned.

Utterly disbelieving that I’m standing in the front pew as he’s exchanging wedding vows.

Trying to remain upright when he tells me I’m a grandpa.

I don’t remember when such fuzzy thoughts began circulating in my brain. Or, more to the point, when they stopped. I didn’t call a press conference and announce, “That’s it, I’m not going to be a father.”

Like other passageways taken or not taken in life, it just came and went. A moment in time passed me by, and the space that fatherhood could have filled was taken up with other things.

The world didn’t suffer because of it, and neither did I. Thinking you would be a good father doesn’t mean you would have been.

And even on these Father’s Days that now seem to roll around more frequently, I don’t mark them with mournful laments or angry recriminations for not having been one.

The only anger is directed at those guys who got the chance to be one and then blew it.