When I got divorced, in a sense I felt relieved that we'd never had children. It made things easier, cleaner, simpler. And that's how it went moving forward for a decade and more. Even after Dionne and I got married, I wasn't searching for children hidden somewhere in our own house. And then it happened and she was pregnant and I was scared and excited and worried and sad and happy and anxious. And one year later, almost exactly, the boy is three months old, and we live in a world in which it's possible for a boy to walk into a church and shoot up other human beings because he doesn't think of them as human beings. At it's most basic level, such a belief is what allowed the peculiar institution hiding in the shadows of all of this. So. I remain terrified. I am more terrified. Both Epimetheus and Pandora, I am now forever exposed. Having a child, I've realized, was like opening that box for the first time. All of the horrors of the world washed over me. But hope remains. Do you see him? He's right there. And he's looking back at me.
