Surrender the Throne
November 1991
For the first time in my life I am spending the night across the street at my neighbor’s house. They are the friendly people we always say hello to when we see them in their front yard, and they always happily collect our mail and feed our pets when we go on vacation. Still, a solo sleepover for me as an eight year old is only something that would take place under bizarre and unusual circumstances. My parents have swiftly deposited me here on the living room floor in the middle of the night, so they can drive to the hospital and give birth to my little brother. I lay wide awake, cautiously scanning my unfamiliar surroundings, and watching as the light from passing cars dances along the edges of the television, then the lamp post, and finally across the desk in the corner of the room. My life will be turned upside down tomorrow, and I don't have the capacity to grasp the enormity of the transformation that is already underway, nor do I even know how to be anxious about it. I’m not wondering what my brother will be like, or how I will be as a brother. I am just awake in this strange room full of pictures of people I've never met staring down at me in my sleeping bag.
April 1991
My mom first told me she was pregnant when picking me up from a weeklong, spring break stay with my grandparents in Sonoma County. She and my dad had just returned from a getaway to the Southwest, which was by far their longest time being away from me since I was born. For seven days, I had been properly buttered up with my Noni’s handmade pizza and pasta, while “The Young and the Restless" played constantly in the living room at an unreasonably high volume.
“I leave you guys alone for one week, and you got pregnant!?” I vented in disbelief, as my mom broke the news.
I wasn't attuned to the timeline of pregnancy and didn't realize that conception happened over a month ago, probably in my parents bedroom, while I innocently played Tetris on our Apple Macintosh Classic computer. Tears spread across my face as we drove over the Richmond bridge and into an entirely new chapter of my life. I gazed despondently out the window at the triangular metal beams that held us firmly 100 feet above the frigid waters of the San Francisco bay.
“Will you still love me?” I asked with genuine curiosity.
“Oh, honey, of course I will!” She replied instantaneously, trying to show her concern by darting me a glance of empathy, while also focusing on the road ahead.
This was clearly not the right setting for this monumental conversation. I needed a long hug. I needed to weep in her arms and be held in all of my fear and uncertainty about what was going to become of my life. Unfortunately, speaking my needs wasn’t in my playbook, so I sat in silence and tried to make sense of what was unfolding.
I believed my mom when she said she would still love me, but I was deeply unsettled by this news. I never consented to having another child in our family. I was used to being the center of attention, and I had generously rewarded my parents for all they had invested in me by being an overachieving perfectionist. My grades in school were consistently excellent. I always cleaned my room before being asked to do so. I was a talented visual artist and an aspiring professional soccer player. I had done everything I could possibly do to please my parents, but apparently it wasn’t enough. There was a void, some need that I had left unmet, which needed to be filled by a new baby. These were the thoughts that bounced painfully around my mind, while I stared out the window in silence, hoping to wake up from this bad dream.
As the months proceeded, my mother’s belly grew, along with the excitement of everyone in my third grade class, including me. All of my peers had siblings that were close in age and the arrival of a baby was a big deal for everyone. I was able to jump on the bandwagon of anticipation and began to occasionally interact with my mother’s expanding womb with some hint of appreciation and wonder. I talked to my brother in utero and mentally prepared for his arrival, trying to think about the benefits of our expanding family like having someone who could chase down stray rebounds when I played basketball in the driveway.
Under the surface, I remained skeptical about my parents’ ability to continue loving me when I surrendered my throne as the only child. Evidence of change was abundant. Our house began to fill with strange items I had no memory of like diapers, a high chair, and a baby crib. To make space for my brother’s bedroom, the office/computer room got dismantled and combined with my parents’ bedroom, so I now had to maneuver around my dad’s dirty underwear to access Tetris! This would be the first of many concessions. A family friend gifted us a wireless phone, a cutting edge piece of technology that promised to help make my parents’ life easier. No more being tethered to the wall of the dining room while speaking on the phone. My world was in a rapid state of transformation.
September 1991
A few months before the due date, we went on our first ever family vacation to Disneyland, a dramatic consolation prize for needing to share my parents. Of every single child I knew, I was the only one my age who had never been to Disneyland. When I revealed this sad truth, my peers would gasp in horror as if I told them I had been diagnosed with a terminal illness. My parents had a vendetta against Disney for their role in upholding outdated gender roles and brainwashing children into becoming capitalist consumers of the future. Going to Disneyland with them was a huge peace offering! To sweeten the deal, I was even miraculously gifted a Nintendo gameboy, the first and last video game console my parents ever allowed until I was able to save enough money to buy my own. Maybe being a big brother wouldn’t be so bad after all.
We made our pilgrimage down highway 5 in my parent’s gray, hatchback Chevy Nova, which was expertly filled to the brim with everything a pregnant woman might need late in her second trimester. Apparently, my dad had also been practicing his Tetris skills. I sat crammed in the backseat, lodged between the door and an ice cooler, playing Tetris on my gameboy while we sped past endless cattle ranches and fruit tree orchards. When we began climbing into the mountains, my parents told me we were getting close because we were already at the Grapevine. As an eccentric child who listened almost exclusively to rock and roll and soul music from the 60’s and 70’s, I thought to myself that this must be the place where Marvin Gaye heard whatever it was that he heard and wanted to tell us about.
We entered the promised land on a perfectly bright, sunny day, and it was everything I hoped it would be. The year was 1990, and I was ready to make my Disneyland debut. I was decked out in my Oakland A’s baseball hat, high top sneakers, and audaciously colorful baggy pants. We made our rounds to all the top attractions with my dad joining me on the likes of Space Mountain, the Matterhorn and Splash Mountain. My mom heroically trotted around with her giant belly, trying her best to keep up with my frenetic pace and inexhaustible hunger for adrenaline. She even courageously agreed to be my passenger in Autotopia, a ride in which patrons steer their own cars through an enclosed track. We were both lucky to survive this experience with spinal columns intact, as I constantly collided with the walls, causing us both to violently lurch in every possible direction. It is unclear if this was my subconscious revenge on my mother for getting pregnant or just my extremely poor driving ability as an 8 year old child.
November 1991
On the morning of thanksgiving day, Paolo made a quick entry into the world at Alta Bates hospital in Berkeley. My dad came to pick me up from our neighbors living room floor and took me to meet my baby brother. I arrived in a room filled to the brim with medical devices and saw my mom laying in bed propped upright on a mountain of pillows. She cradled Paolo in her arms, and even though he was a hefty newborn of nearly nine pounds, he looked so tiny that I was afraid if I sneezed he might fly out the window like a piece of scrap paper. My mom looked absolutely exhausted, more so than I had ever seen before. Still, she was smiling and seemed to be in good spirits.
My dad asked me if I wanted to hold Paolo, and I hesitantly said yes. I had never held a baby before, and I wasn’t sure if I could succeed. Perhaps I was still holding onto some animosity about needing to share my parents with him and still in denial that this was even happening. I sensed that everyone in the room wanted to see me hold him, so I sat on the couch across from the bed, and nodded as a sign of readiness to receive the precious human cargo. My dad gently delivered my brother into my lap along with careful instructions for how to support his head. I was surprised by the warmth of his body as he settled into my open arms and gazed up quizzically at my face. The miniature size of his nose, ears and fingernails was comical, and I laughed at the absurdity of his dimensions. I stared into his mystical black eyes and tried to make sense of this new family member who had been a tangible but mysterious presence in my mom’s belly for the last 9 months.
At this point, when I think about the future, I imagine myself being a dad. I see myself holding a baby with confidence just as my father did when he handed my brother to me. It seems like fatherhood is in the natural course of events, something that will inevitably happen. I have no real understanding of concepts like sacrifice or responsibility. I don’t have the awareness to calculate the financial cost of being a father, or the ecological considerations of contributing to a rapidly rising human population. I only have my feelings at this moment. Holding this baby feels right. This is life.
~
For a musical experience on the topic of a challenge becoming a blessing, check out the song “The Gauntlet” by clicking the image below.
“Hey, this is not what I wanted
Maybe this is what I needed
I traveled the gauntlet
I knew that it wouldn’t be easy”