*A LETTER FROM CHANGE * Dear Robert, It’s me, Change, the only constant thing in your life. I see you’ve been looking at your baby photo a lot lately. Nubia, your wife, keeps showing it to people and demanding that they deny that the sky is blue and insist that Helena–your two week old daughter–looks like her. Your hands are up, there is a blue blanket wrapped around you and the hue of your skin is as pink as it is today. They say babies look like their dads out of the womb as some sort of evolutionary signal for the dads to stick around. It’s funny really, deep down she knows Baby Helena is a replica of you.
You’re teaching a lot of people to tell better stories these days and you’ve dumbed it down so much that it’s really just about me. Are you trying to suck up to me? A story, you’re telling people is simple: Things were one way, then something happened, and here’s how it *changed *things. You’re right. I move the world forward. You can count on me, death and taxes. So for you Robert, this year has and will bring more change to you than any in your recent memory. Today, you’re 43. If life is a game you’re walking out of the halftime tunnel, the band has finished playing and you’re gearing up for the second half–if you’re lucky. And you are lucky, you’ve succeeded professionally beyond your wildest dreams, you met the human of your dreams and she gave you a daughter who, again, looks exactly like you. So how will your 44th trip around the sun and the arrival of your daughter change you? You’ve already told your friends that Helena didn’t explode your heart on the first night she came. Maybe you were too giddy recording the whole thing or wondering why you didn’t bring more camera lenses into the operating room. Your Doctor drove in from vacation with a boat trailing her to deliver Helena and you asked last minute if you could record. She either didn’t want to say no or you asked just nicely enough.
The photos you’re showing here are the ones you took. Nubia says she looks awful on that first night but you remember thinking that mothers are warriors and the nurses are the field medics who make everything possible. And her Mother—Maria Fatima—who flew in from Brazil with no sleep and stayed awake with you catching rest on a recliner and a sofa in a room that size of your college dormitory. There is nothing like a mother’s love. I wish your mother was still here on earth was here to witness this. Even though she isn’t your reverence for her has only grown.
So I need to ask you a question? Are you afraid of me? You see me and the other values (hope, fear, love etc.) we all get to see right through people. We’re all knowing and you can’t defeat or deny us.
It’s how the great storytellers all found their way. Do not try to deny us because it will be a cold and dark night for the soul. Work with us, talk to us, lean on us. I get why you might be afraid of me. Change means letting go of the person you were for the person you’re becoming but it also means the vision of your life looks different than you thought it might have even just a year ago. Guess what, people wake up one day and not the next, and sometimes that I love you will be your last. Don’t mean to shake you, if anything, it should inspire you. Because all Helena does now is eat, sleep, poop and pee. But soon she'll lift her head and then she’ll babble and then you’ll babble back and then she’ll crawl and walk and listen to terrible pop music and fall in love and break her heart and so on and so on. Now, Robert, you must learn to embrace today. And know that I’ll come tomorrow and change things again and again. So, Helena changed you Forever. But she’ll change you slowly and quickly and all at once. You told your friends that on day 2, you felt overwhelmed and wondered if the explosion of love would come. She looked like an old man on day 2 and Nubia felt tired and you well just existed. By day 4, when the nurse asked you to show Helena’s car seat. And you put your daughter in it. The belt went click. Your heart swelled and your eyes teared up and you told your friend, It was the best moment of your life. Now that’s a birthday gift worth waiting for. Your friend, Change. PS: Instead of a registry, You made a site where family and friends can leave a wish for Helena and share a story that you want future Helena to know about her dad and/or mom. If you’re still reading this visit *http://helena.dearworld.com* to leave your wish and contribute to her first children’s book.
