Father's Day times deux

Husband-and-wife journalists Bob Miller and Callie Clark Miller use this space to offer their views on everyday issues.

HE SAID: Perhaps it started with the lights.

The bright, overhead bulbs made the room seem surreal, like my wife was the subject of an experiment.

I had just seen her taking a sharp contraption to the spine. There was a pleasant-looking older man with a beard pumping some liquid in through a tube. A nurse holding Callie's face in both hands, looking her in the eyes, telling her to focus.

The hours were slipping by. Was it getting close to daylight? Sleep was escaping me, stolen away partly by anticipation like a boy on Christmas Eve and partly by what those overhead lights represented. A hospital room. A new beginning. A change.

Somewhere in the room, Callie's mother patiently and politely waited, giving her daughter help when I was too awe-struck to do anything. Mostly I held my wife's hand as she rode the labor roller coaster.

Usually in this column, I refer to Callie as my cute and talented wife. She was not this person some 10 weeks ago in the birthing room. She was as I've never seen her, oblivious to makeup and hair and shoes. She was vulnerable, worried, her confidence bullied by problems of pregnancies past and by ultrasounds that showed our baby wasn't growing at the "normal" rate.

When I heard Dawson's screams for the first time, those lights revealed a reality that was years in the making. I was a father again. Love pulled my heart in two directions. Tend to Callie or check out the new boy? The boy won my heart.

I watched through a camera lens as the nurse weighed and cleaned him.

But I couldn't see him very well the first time I held him. I could only see his outline, distorted through natural saline. I was an emotional rainbow, and he was my pot of gold.

And it was much the same 10 years earlier when my first son was born. His mother had a much more difficult delivery, but my reaction to his birth was the same. Drew was four pounds larger than his little brother, but I remember looking at him through a liquid prism as well.

On this Father's Day, I will have two sons, one 10 years old and the other 10 weeks.

I love watching the two of them together. Big brother has taken an active role in Dawson's life. He likes holding and feeding him. He talks in babyspeak, volunteers to help with bath time and has shown zero hints of jealousy about the amount of time and energy that is placed at the feet of his newborn brother.

In some ways, as I've written in recent weeks, it still seems like a dream. The lack of sleep has a way of doing that to a new dad. But it's also the way Dawson looks so cute, the way he grips my finger, the way he needs our touch. It all plays tricks with my senses.

My boys need me. And I need them.

I think that's what makes fatherhood so special to me.

In the next two years, I'll help teach Dawson how to walk. I'll help usher Drew into his preteen years.

I'll help fix Dawson's scrapes, help mend Drew's heartaches.

I'll help proof Drew's homework. I'll help Dawson learn his ABCs.

And I'll watch them both grow up together, learning from one another about the value of love, family and the wonders of growing.

My fear is that the bright lights will go dark; I'll open my eyes and find the dream is over.

Happy Father's Day, all. Here's to helping dreams come true.

Bob Miller is a renewed papa and the Southeast Missourian managing editor. Callie Clark Miller is back to being cute and talented as the special publications managing editor for the Southeast Missourian. Reach them at cmiller@semissourian.com and bmiller@semissourian.com.