I'm Going to Be a Dad Tomorrow (Maybe)

Landmines.

In 10th grade, one of my schoolmates had a baby.

She’d bring her daughter to English class, which made it difficult to learn about Robert Frost’s poem, ‘The Road Not Taken’. It was also frustrating because it meant my classmate had sex, fell pregnant, went through a 9-month pregnancy and had a baby before I’d had my first kiss.

I guess involuntary celibacy was my path, but her road not taken.

Today (depending on when you read this) was my wife’s due date. She has not given birth — as far as I know.

I recently “lost” my shoes and found them days later inside plastic bags in the freezer (where I put them to remove the smell, not due to advanced dementia), so things can slip my mind.

Still, I’m pretty sure we haven’t had a baby (although I’ll feel embarrassed if I’m wrong and also if I’ve misplaced more footwear in the freezer).

That means we keep waiting.

In the meantime, I planned to write a low-effort, mildly humorous listicle about things I wouldn’t do once I became a Dad, but I didn’t get around to it (and you’re not missing out).

Instead, I’ve been wrapped up in nostalgia, self-reflection, and melancholy, which might be expected for a first-time parent. Or, maybe the whole shoes-in-the-freezer fiasco was a sign of mental breakdown. I don’t know.

I won the battle against cancer 16 years ago, but sometimes I feel like I lost the war.

Like you, I often retreat into the solitude of my thoughts when life teeters on the edge of significant change.

In my mind, I imagine an endless grass-covered field. It’s a landscape that once raged with noise and venom, soil churning under infantry boots. Now, it’s serene and quiet, devoid of movement, but the difference is a facade. The soldiers are gone, but the ground is littered with concealed landmines. I can’t see them, only experience the indefinable mixture of sweat and fear and uncertainty after stepping on one.

Decades after “beating” cancer, the swaying treetops and rolling green hills inside my head remain a mirage. Happiness exists to mock me until the inevitable resumption of hostilities.

Or so I tell myself, racked with self-loathing and frustration because I can’t find a shred of compassion to direct inward.

I won the battle, but at what cost?

Diagnosed at 20, my adult life has revolved around my experience with leukemia, like the Earth looping around the sun. Fighting it and running from it. I cannot escape the spectre.

This isn’t to say I’m a victim of my circumstances — I’m not. I’m acutely aware of how blessed I am to have walked through the fire. Still, the smoke lingers on my clothes. I could scrub my skin until it bled and never be free of that stench.

I can remember all of it.

Walking into the hospital to begin chemotherapy, swinging automatic doors loomed over me like slender limbs pulling me into an unwanted, unwelcome embrace. Surrounded by the pinballing chatter of other patients, I felt suffocated by their palpable sickness. And mine. Desperately alone, even in the most crowded of rooms, my life felt over.

I couldn’t see it then, but columns of soldiers had begun marching through my mind — implementing a subconscious scorched-earth policy in the face of cancer’s Blitzkrieg.

Trauma leads to reduced activity in the hippocampus, which distinguishes between past and present. When the brain can’t tell the difference between an actual event and a memory of it, it perceives things that trigger memories as traumatic events themselves.

Trapped in a state of hyper-emotional reactivity, I can’t predict what will set me off; I can only react to limit the radius of the blast.

The hospital, or thoughts of it, have regularly been responsible.

Unfortunately (well, fortunately for my wife), hospitals are central to the birthing experience. Sure, home births are popular among a particular crowd, and there’s probably a sub-section of TikTok into cave birthing like our Homo Erectus ancestors (#HomoBirthing?). But it’s hard to beat the traditional birthing suite.

I’ve been visiting the hospital a lot in the lead-up to my daughter’s birth. Check-ups, check-ins, check out where we’ll be staying. Naturally, I feared the worst.

And after years of fearing what was inside the hospital walls—and what that environment would do to me—something was… different.

The same swinging automatic doors greeted me, welcoming and warm. Visitors milled around, wearing smiles, and the symphony of their collective chatter was optimistic instead of ominous. Everything was different from what I remembered, and I was shocked at how alien the hospital environment felt.

This isn’t a heartwarming tale of one man’s cleansing because life isn’t that simple. Like me, you carry the weight of what’s happened in your life, and there’s no relieving yourself of that burden — only new strength to carry better what must be carried.

I haven’t woken up free from my cancer-related challenges, but experiencing the hospital setting in a new light has helped me feel less trapped.

All this time, I was trying to sidestep landmines, and then, in a moment of clarity, listening to my daughter’s heartbeat, it came to me: there was nothing to run from.

We all fall victim to traps in our minds. Some more than others, some more catastrophically than others, but no one emerges unscathed from the battles they’ve fought.

With my daughter on the way, I think about how awful it would be to live forever without being subjected to moments of growth — even if that means triumph is interspersed with tragedy.

Sixteen years on, my experience with cancer has reshaped me again and again, like layers of new wallpaper overlaid on age-worn versions that came before to create something that’s both original and unique.

Greeting the hospital again after so many years was like crossing paths with an old friend. It made me realise that maybe it’s not whether the war is lost or won that matters, simply that you survived.

The day I found out I had cancer felt like the day my life ended. Tomorrow (depending on when you read this), a new life begins. And what’s the point of life if not an endless chance to try again?

To try and overcome our mental demons. To try to be better than you were before. To try to be the best father you can be.

Today, my old classmate’s baby has grown up and graduated high school English herself (and I still don’t know what that damn Robert Frost poem was about).

Tomorrow, I might have a daughter.

Until then, I’ll keep waiting.

My mind’s grass-covered field is a nice spot to pass the time. It still smells like smoke, but I can see the trees rippling in the wind. Who knows, my next trip to the hospital might help blow away the scent for good.

With love,

New World Porter

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