The Sun yielded to your mother, who rose early from the pain. Pain in the abdomen. The place where, five months earlier, your story began. “It’s likely nothing,” I feebly reassured as we made for the car.
Our trusted obstetrician met us at the hospital. Along with caring and experience, she brought a foreboding diagnosis: premature labor. At 24 weeks, you’d have a chance at surviving. This was week 23. We hadn’t even settled on a name. But there, on that crisp January morning in 2013, it presented itself: Victoria, as in the Roman goddess of victory, as in you would defy this prognosis, as in you would . . . survive.
You were born perfect. No, really, you were: precisely on target for your gestational age. Your mother’s body simply couldn’t restrain you. We were unaware of the cervical incompetence. Until you taught us. While too late to save yourself, the knowledge revealed a procedure. Thus you have siblings: Madeline and Dylan. Their full terms owing to yours, tragically abbreviated. Was this your sole purpose, sacrifice? No.
In just 91 minutes, we made memories. I never saw your gaze, eyes not formed enough to open. I never heard your cry, lungs not formed enough to breathe. But as I held you on my forearm, I felt your warmth; I felt your heartbeat; I felt your mass, scarcely more than a pound. This I recall vividly, as though you might be there still. Barely moving, you made your life known. And we were a family.
In just 91 minutes, you taught me to be present. Your terminus fast approaching, I focused not on the loss I’d soon bear, but on the beautiful living daughter in my midst. Which was all that mattered. All that ever matters, really. Your siblings favor me with seemingly infinite time. Yet I’m losing them too, albeit slowly. A bit each day, as they grow up. So I am with them—only them—as we laugh and play.
In just 91 minutes, you taught me what it means to be a father. Only then did I understand. Only then could I understand. Visceral understanding, that only a father knows. All else is learned through experience. I’m learning still.
A decade later, your essence persists; stronger, as I’ve grown wiser. You are a part of me. You touch the world through me. A world made better, because you were here.