Foreman's Punch

I start this on a warm, Saturday afternoon in July. Above the cottage where we live in West Yorkshire, bruised clouds huddle in conspiratorial discussion, possibly debating if it’d be fair to lighten their bellies again before heading east, over the Pennines. They’d been doing this for the past week now, making it one of the wettest beginnings to July for many years. When it rains, the only options you have living in the country is to stay at home, or go to the pub. We have just returned from the Malthouse, a local bar/restaurant that serves the best cappuccinos this side of Yorkshire. My wife, Carla, is getting together blankets, clean clothes, the teddy bear comforter, the Tommee Tippee monitor, and various other essentials needed to assist in the duty of babysitting, because tonight, our daughter, Amelie, is staying over at her Nan’s. this is the first time my wife and I have abdicated responsibility our child to another person, and it’ll be the first time we’ll return to the cottage without watching our every step, and sniffing the air for the rancid odour of a full nappy. And as I type that line out, those same group of morose clouds move over to allow in, for the briefest of moments, a ray of sunlight that finds my nape. It seems even God approves of this timely stay over.

It’s been eight months since the birth of our daughter, Amelie, and it’s only now I’ve found time to begin this journal. Ask most new parents, and I’m sure eight months is about the time they too caught their first breath. As I think back on those eight months, it seems so frenzied.
I guess this starts with a dream. I was fighting the world heavy weight, Gorge Foreman (yes, to those unsure of the grill salesman, his origins lie in boxing). He was young then, in his prime. The crowd were pulsating, hands raised high punching the air, jeering and screaming for blood. It was all very exciting. The bell rang, and both Foreman and I shuffled to the centre of the ring. Foreman threw the first punch, and I raised my guard, my fists taking the first strike with ease. He threw a second, lower this time, and I adjusted accordingly. We danced around each other, bobbing and weaving to the cadence of boos and chants. Foreman dropped his huge arms momentarily. His face was exposed. I gathered all my strength from within, and swung back my right arm before throwing through the air. Then I heard it, distant, but haunting enough to rise above the screaming crowd. It’s the sound that, until it arrives, can either make a man a withering wreck, or bring into being a part of him he never knew he had. It is the sound of your wife calling your name in the pastel shades of night. It is your wife telling you, "I think it’s happening".

I never did find out if my punch would have dropped Foreman to the canvas, a punch that would have crowned me champion of the world. Instead, I was too busy counting the minutes between each contraction, making tea, reassuring my wife this was going to be a wonderful day, gathering together her overnight bag, and I dare say becoming excited to what lay ahead. And looking back, those series of moments and actions that I undertook are now comparable, you might say, to what my wife is doing as she gets Amelie’s belongings together before we embark on the journey that marks our first night of freedom in eight months. Though the difference is, there will be no panic tonight, no tears as I watched my wife place that gas tube in her mouth for the first time; their will be no hopelessness as I watch her cry out every three minutes in agony, no thoughts of haemorrhaging, of a life without her beside me. No, tonight my heart won’t ache, my palms will remain dry, and from my mouth no words of reassurance will be needed. Tonight, I won’t be the man who needs to bring into being the thing he thought he never had – courage.
Well, maybe just a little bit. I might need it when I wave goodbye to my daughter.