Elio

As i write these words my son is a little under a day old.

Everything changes, that’s what they tell you, all the friends who have started down this journey before us, our relatives, elders.

There are emotions unlocked inside me, an almost physical new presence, sometimes quiescent, sometimes flooding over me, triggered by the banal miracles - the sound of a breath, a gurgle, just the telling of the story of the birth.

I walked down Tottenham court road, late June summer shining. I felt displaced, I was not sharing the same world as all of these other people any more. Either I, or they, or the world itself - in it’s makeup, had shifted. In every aspect of being there I had to come to terms with those changes.

The closest I’ve felt to this in the past was at the death of my father, then years later of my grandmother. Everything changes, everything is the same, and you go on having to deal with becoming a different person for the rest of your life.

But joy, now, joy unconstrained.

Perhaps it’s love that makes the end and the beginning of life feel so strangely similar.

Everything changes, it transforms you, I’m filled with love for you, my Elio.

And my love for my wife has been transformed too. She is the strongest person I know. I don’t have the words for her now, maybe I never will, but she is has grace of Helen, the control and poise of a Buddha, the strength of a superhero, and the heart of our family.

The staff here at UCH are kindness, and have cared so wonderfully for us, I must thank them too.

Elio, I tell you, you have come and changed our lives, and tomorrow, and all the days after, we will use our changed lives to help you create your own. I promise you tears and laughter, kindness and the sharing of sadnesses, but above all I promise you love.