“Daddy, that’s a policeman!” shouted my three-year-old son (V) to my wife and me, as we were waiting for our taxi to arrive at Terminal 2 of the Singapore Changi Airport.
“Shall we go and say Hi?” my wife asked V.
Without hesitation, V dragged his mother to the two armed policemen and waved “Hello!” at them.
The policemen reciprocated with a smile and a wave.
A ponytailed girl was playing with her brother at the playground as I was walking back home in my Navy No. 4 after ending my in-camp training (ICT) for the day.
“Are you a soldier?”, the young girl, who looked like she was around five years of age, blurted out innocently.
“Yes”, I said, proudly.
After a while, she waved me goodbye.
Two separate episodes. Two brief moments.
But both powerful.
As a father, I felt happy that the policeman made my son’s day, when he could have chosen to ignore.
As an uniformed personnel who wears my No. 4 only once a year during ICT, I felt elated to make the girl happy, when I could have just walked as if I didn’t hear anything.
Sometimes, we don’t need to do much to make a fellow human being happy — we just need to be present and reciprocate.
As cliche as it may sound, time has really flown past in a blink of an eye.
It seemed like just yesterday I was holding the fragile him right after he emerged out of my warrior wife’s womb.
I have been wanting to write this post for some time, but I just couldn’t get the time to sit down and do so.
But now, with the one-month circuit breaker measures in Singapore, I finally have some breathing space to pen my thoughts down.
Luckily so, the delay has been a blessing. I can weave in more stories and lessons that my son has opened my eyes to.
So, here are the eight things my son’s birth has taught me about life.
1. We were given an identity when we came into this world
We didn’t name our son until around after two weeks he was born. In his first few days of life on Earth, we had to bring him for a routine checkup at the polyclinic that all newborns go through.
At registration, the nurse asked me what my son’s name is. I told her he doesn’t have a name yet.
At that moment, I was hit by a huge realisation.
I realised that when we came into being, we were nameless and without any identity.
I go by the name of Sudhan, but before that name was created, I was “nothing”, or without any label.
It is by being given a name that we identify with it, and fight for that name to be heard.
Maybe it’s called the ego.
I came across an article, A Name Is Only a Label, on the internet that also mentioned what I felt then:
“Every child comes into the world without a name, but we have to give a name; it has some utility. It is absolutely false, but in a vast world with millions of people it will be difficult to manage if nobody had any name; it will become almost impossible to manage. Some names are needed; false they are, but they work, they have a utility. They have no reality, but utility certainly they have.
But ordinarily you grow with your name; in fact, you become conscious only later on. Your name is deeper than your consciousness, hence there arises an identity with the name. You start feeling, “This is my name, this is me.””
2. The meaning of the full cycle of life and death
My ammayi (grandma) passed away in 2014.
Upon seeing someone close to me pass on, I realised that we can’t bring any possessions with us when we expire. My grandma’s clothes were just left lying in her brown, wooden cupboard.
Whatever we have attained from this world (e.g. status, money, relationships, etc.), we leave it here when we go. There’s no point fighting over things that are temporary.
But I only fully understood the full cycle of life and death after I saw my son being born.
As I was heading to the MRT station a few days after his birth, I saw a funeral procession under one of the blocks.
At that moment, it hit me hard that when there’s birth, there’s death.
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3. Trust the power of nature
For nine months, the foetus was gestating in my wife’s womb.
Every single month, there were changes to the size of the foetus and different organs were developing.
27 August 2018
All these were happening without our conscious input.
I couldn’t hasten the process, nor could I slow it down. Everything was happening at its own time.
So, we shouldn’t worry about life when things don’t go the way we want it to. We just need to trust the universe to give us the best.
If we don’t get what we want when we wish for it, maybe it’s not yet time, or maybe there’s something better out there.
4. Be in this moment
Babies are a joy to be with as they are always in this moment, not worrying about the past nor the future.
As I see my son play with his toys happily or randomly plod around the house, I get reminded that we should always be present and enjoy life as it is.
Before my son was born, I came across Instagram posts by my friends, who are parents, that babies grow up too fast.
So, from day one, I told myself that I should enjoy every moment of nurturing him, be it waking up in the middle of the night to change his diapers, showering him, or carrying him to sleep at 2am.
When he’s all grown up, he might not even have time for me, so I should enjoy every moment I have with him now.
Looking back, he has really grown up too fast.
I can’t get back those moments anymore, but I’m glad I was fully involved as a father during those times.
I was also lucky to be working from home as a freelancer so I could witness all his various milestones from birth to seven months (that was when I had to go back to full-time work).
5. Have a beginner’s mind
Babies are doing many things for the first time. What may be second nature to us is something brand new for them.
And since it’s super new, they see the world in awe.
That’s the beginner’s mind at play.
I realised I need to have the beginner’s mind when I live life to see things from a fresh perspective.
For example, when reading a book to my son, it might be boring for me, but with a beginner’s mind, I can see how babies see the world. I can then rediscover the world’s awe through him, and because of him.
6. It’s all in the mind
Before my son was born, I would get agitated and feel lethargic if I didn’t get my seven to eight hours of sleep each night.
After my son was born, especially in the first few weeks, I rarely got an eight-hour slumber.
But I was fine. I had the energy and drive to be present with my son.
So, those moments of feeling irritated due to a “lack of sleep” was all in the mind.
7. Always be resilient
When my son falls down or accidentally knocks against something, he cries for a while.
But almost instantaneously, he forgets about the pain and is all joyous once again.
During those moments, I get reminded about the power of being resilient.
8. Never, ever, give up
My son learnt to turn from his back to his front when he was around three months old.
It took many attempts for him to master that skill.
Many a time, he would just fall back to his back. But after many tries, he finally got the hang of turning in one fell swoop.
When he first started to learn to walk, he fell down numerous times on his bum (Huggies provides great cushioning!). But he just got up and tried again.
From those episodes, I learnt that we should never give up trying.
Persevere.
Eventually, we will see it through.
Thank you, son.
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