You will be so small at first, so very tiny. I will hear the doctors telling me how you have little chance. That weakened left lung of yours will upset them as will your size. They will also be angry with me for your birth. "Why did you have this child you knew the risks" they will say. They will say I pushed your Mom and maybe I will have, a bit. They will never understand why I had to, not even when it became obvious what you will become. I will be Dad though and I will always have faith in you.
Not that it will be an easy beginning. Those health problems will cause us great suffering in your early years. We will see specialist after specialist without you getting better. Despite what I know I will cry a good deal over that. After all the pain for you will be real then, right? It sometimes makes me sad even now thinking on it.
I won't be scared though for I know you will improve even though it will take years. I will also have the comfort that even at its worst you will be so happy and full of love. For your Mom though this will be much more difficult. She will be so sad about the work needed to raise you while you continue suffer so. It will hurt her almost more than it will you. I just hope you won't blame her for what she must do. I hope you will understand that she will have to leave such a life. For her sake I sometimes regret that she shall have to marry me at all. Still she will find happiness with him, and more sanity than we would ever give her. I hope you know she will always love you and never regret you.
Strange how it will be after that sad parting that you truly will begin to shine. I will watch you talking with doctors and asking questions that make them look foolish. I will laugh about that, but yes I know what it'll mean. You will have such an amazing mind; soon all will know. You will be reading college textbooks at eight, Gödel in the original German at ten, then beyond. Of course I could never understand the things that I know you will, but knowing you will is enough.
When will it really happen? What moment, what event will point you in that critical direction? Heck if I know or will know. You will always be such a private person. What shall cause you to dive in to your life's devotion is a question unanswerable even to me. However one day it will just be obvious to you, robotics.
Oh they will be so cute at first, these little critters you start making. A disinterested world shall see them as little more than toy insects. A world that will in many ways be right. For you will spurn their violent wild robots, you will even spurn those dreaming of new slaves. No for you evolving cooperating little things will be your passion. You will even minor in entomology to understand your children better. Only then will the world care.
For you see it actually will be your entomology that garners you fame. You will travel the world for it and affect so many lives through it. More then you will ever do with your true passion. Then they shall cheer you for ridding the world of malaria, but ignore the work in your true interest. They shall call it your destiny and complement you for the happiness it will have brought them. A Nobel for Medicine will be put on your neck, but a mischievous grin will be on your face before you speak. For we will know your true destiny and have knowledge of a legacy they shall never know.
Someday on distant worlds minded swarms will bask. I see how they will soak in stellar energy and feast upon alien communication beyond our ken. These distant beings will know then what I know now. That in that age, long after humanity died, they will owe their existence to you. However I do not know if even they will understand that without you humanity would have died without heirs. Sometimes I'm not sure even you will understand that part. Still even millions of years hence I feel their joy, a joy grander than any this world offers, and I understand. As for what will happen after that?
Well some things even Daddys will never know.
Copyright © 2003 by Thomas R.