Love Multiplies, Not Divides

I will be honest, a week ago I was really scared. It was my wife’s “Due Date” with our second child, and I realized that I was about to double the amount of children I had. Our first, our daughter, was awesome. She was born 6 months after we moved to Alaska, 9 months after I graduated law school, and 11 months after my wife and I were married. She came at the culmination of a year of amazing joys. She was an awesome baby, has been an awesome kid, and has been the joy of my life, aside of course from my wife.

My wife and I are the best of friends. She admits that she knew that I might be the one while we were dating because she, “never got sick” of me. The fact that I didn’t bore her is a pretty awesome feat, as she is a very interesting and fun person. So when our daughter came there were some nervous thoughts about how we wouldnt be only focused on each other, or how we would divide our love or time. But things came naturally, and our little girl became an extension of us, it was as if our love was so awesome for one another it couldn’t be contained in just two people… so it created another! God really is pretty amazing isn’t he?

As my girl grew, so did I. As I said, we had just moved to Alaska and I was learning to live a very interesting life. Hiking, fishing, hunting, and now this winter trapping. All very outdoorsy activities that are a way of life around here. We are very attached parents, and our daughter is always with us. I started taking her out on little adventures with me. Hiking, fishing, hunting and the like. As this winter rolled around, which starts in October for us, she started going out to the “river” with me to go trapping. I don’t expect her to be a tomboy or even really desire it that much, my goal was to spend time with my daughter. So as we grew to be buddies, our second child grew in my wife’s belly. A lot of people said, “It’s a boy!” They were excited because they knew I would finally have a son, and that I would be able to take him on all my adventures; that is when I got scared.

You see, I love my daughter. A lot. I have been a coach, a camp counselor, a teacher, a mentor, etc… I always had favorites. I didn’t mean to, it just happened. So I was really worried that I would end up picking “favorites” amongst my kids. So I was worried that a second kid could throw all sorts of hitches into my life. My daughter is really cool, and I really love her. We are not the “spoiling type” nor was I worried that there would be added cost or anything like that, this was a purely emotional analysis. I just didnt think I had the capital to spend on a second kid, at least the way in which I did, or wanted to, spend on my daughter.

So as we got closer to having #2, people started asking, “so what do you want the baby to be?” I answered with the quippy, “healthy.” I knew what they meant, I just didn’t want to answer. I didn’t want to tell the truth, and I didn’t want to lie. You see, I wanted another girl. Not too many dads say that, when they don’t have a son. But to me, who was worried that I would even have enough love for a second child, surely didn’t want to figure out the emotional complexity of having a second child that was a boy. The was a part of me, the part that plays favorites, that didn’t want to lose or divide any of that special love I had for my little queen. I wanted a girl because it would mean that my buddy and I could continue as we always did. There would be less pressure to do the same things with our second child if she was a daughter. Mom could have #2, and I would have #1. The love between four is easily divided by two. So, I wanted a girl.

Don’t get me wrong, the idea of a boy was fantastic, the whole “heir to the throne,” the continuation of our family and our “line” and all that. I do expect my daughters to be feminine and ladies, so I do want boys, eventually, to be able to do really manly things with when they are older, I just didnt want that now – I didn’t want to divide my love from my daughter. I always thought that we only have so much love, and as we give some away, we cant just make more. Sort of like that theory that says a person can only have a maximum of 150 friends, anything above that we cant really focus on.

Then, just a few days ago, in the middle of a cold Alaskan night, my son was born. It clicked, almost instantly. The fear was gone, and the confusion of how it was going to work left quicker than it came. As I held him, and looked at him I realized I loved him every bit as much as my daughter. The seeming contradiction made perfect sense to me. Logic would say that if you take all the love you have, and fill a jar with it, you would have nothing left to put in a second jar. But that is where logic fails and love prevails. God is love. God is master of the mystery, the miraculous, and the impossible. God makes it so that love multiplies, not divides.