The Shadow Child

Yesterday, during a back & forth professional e-mail chain, a business partner wrote:

"Congratulations to your daughter on her acceptance to the university!"

I stopped for a moment, taken aback at the obviously incorrect statement. Yours truly has never been in a position to father a child, dear reader, and so the laudation was, alas, misdirected. A couple of e-mails later, and all was sorted out. The person had meant to send the remarks to someone else. No harm, no foul.

Afterward, I had turned the exchange into a minor story of mirth, regaling a couple of co-workers about it, and even posting it online to social media. Chuckle chuckle, there's no way Matt could have a daughter out there -- or could he? Ha ha, but no. Admittedly, I had a few seconds of slight panic at the thought of an offspring I was unaware of. The alarm was uncalled for, of course, which at the moment made it even more amusing.

And then, as the day wore on, a rather surprising sense of melancholy draped over me. No, I didn't have a daughter about to go to college. I didn't have any kid to speak of at all. This reality was one I'd come to terms with for some time, with the occasional pang of 'what if?' occurring every now and again. So why was I feeling wistful about harmless error in an e-mail? We don't usually become sad about things we've come to terms with, no?

Years ago, in high school, before I came out as gay, there was a classmate named Laura. I had a crush on her. She probably had some clue, as I would often act doe-eyed around her. She was super nice, but it was obvious there was no romantic interest there. So I would sit sometimes, alone with my cloistered thoughts, about possibly, perhaps one day, settling down with a girl like Laura. We would have a colonial-style home with a white picket fence (yes, really), and we'd have two kids.

My vision of an ideal life was no doubt shaped and molded by a confluence of watching a lot of '50s and '60s sitcom reruns, and a trip out to California in 1991, where mom and I met some friends of hers who lived out there. One of the stops we made was in the Brentwood section of LA (specifically, to 485 Halvern Drive), which was the home of film legend Fred MacMurray and his wife, June Haver. Fred was my favorite actor, and I snapped a couple photos of the exterior of their house as we drove by. It was a colonial abode with a white picket fence. Fred and June had two kids. You can see the imprint it made upon me.

Anyhow, life unfolded, as it often does. I learned that I preferred men to women, I met someone, we built a life together and, well, having kids just didn't seem very practical. There are many same-sex couples who have children, either by natural means or through adoption, and that's wonderful. I have always thought myself too selfish to be a good parent, nor does my partner really want to have kids.

It is difficult to know the reasons for having children, or if there are always 'reasons.' Some people have the parental urge, of course. Some want to do better at raising a human being than perhaps their parents did with them. Still others aren't sure why, they just know they want to be parents. And, of course, there are always the happy (hopefully) accidents. Me? I fall more into the 'do better' camp. My father was emotionally distant and not terribly nice. I think (hope?) I could improve upon that. But is that a good enough reason to want to be a parent? I don't really know.

There is a sense of purpose, I suppose, that comes with being a parent. Not that one can't have a purpose in life without children to raise (many do), it's just a different kind. I imagine -- in this idyllic, yearning fiction that flows through my mind now and again -- the milestone occasions in our kid's life, of the joy, the pride, the love. These thoughts appear as ghost images, as events that never were and never will be.

Of course, the reality -- the reasons for not being a parent -- is rife with its own counter-images. I fear holding babies because I might drop or break them. Diaper changes? No thank you. Potty-training? Not cute. Worrying about them when they're not around? Stressful. The terrible twos? The (potentially) rebellious teen years? Having money to send them to college? Eh, all of it seems overwhelming and a job for someone with more patience and fortitude than yours truly.

Yet the ghost images still linger.