Becoming a parent for the first time can bring a wild range of emotions. Chris Myers of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, came head to head with those feelings in the middle of a supermarket.
The following story was told at The Moth during an open-mic StorySLAM in Milwaukee where the theme of the night was “Happy.” Here’s Chris Myers live at The Moth.
(This story has been edited for brevity and clarity.)
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In the run up to my first daughter’s birth, I discovered that the gulf between how I thought I should feel and how I did feel was getting wider and wider. It wasn’t so much that I felt blue or sad or anything. It was just that it was a little bit beyond my reach.
This came to a quick head two weeks before she was (supposed to be) born.
My wife and I, late one evening, are hanging out. She sits down and says, “Ooh!” It is the most significant “Ooh!” I’m ever going to hear in my life.
We spend three and a half hours trying to figure out if we’re in labor. Now, I’m just going to tell you, if you’re planning on having a kid or if you’re on your way to having a kid, if you spend two hours trying to figure out if you’re in labor — you’re in labor.
So, we rushed to the hospital. And about 45 minutes after that, I’m holding my daughter, Eleanor. I’m relieved. I’m happy in a sense, but I’m not really feeling the joy. It’s still beyond me.
Well, luckily, my wife steps in, and she sends me to go get her some non-hospital food.
And so, I go across the street to Whole Foods, which is a bastion of drama. There in aisle — I think it was 7 — I’m reaching for an Italian soda. As I reach for it, I hear a drum beat on the radio, “dum, dum, dum, da da da dum, dum,” and a keyboard and a baby’s cry. It’s this throwaway song that I’ve never paid attention to for the most part.
But I fall to my knees sobbing, because it’s Stevie freaking Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely.”
I am suddenly clobbered by the reality of what is hit. Well, frankly, I’m floored.
As I’m having my epiphany, I’m sitting there and I can hear in the back of my head this voice saying something to the effect of, “There’s an incident in aisle 7.” And I’m looking around thinking, “I’m the only guy in aisle 7. There’s nothing going on ….Oooooh!”
Good parenthood moment, I’m going to mention: I didn’t drop the bottle.
Cradled, sobbing over my lemon lime Italian soda, I get this 19-year-old kid — he’s kind of geeky looking — and comes up very Whole Food-sy, and he’s like, “Are you OK, sir?”
I’m cradling a bottle of Italian soda and trying to explain to him the beauty, the depth, the grapes of what 10 fingers and 10 toes is suddenly meaning to me. I’m not doing a good job of it. Finally, I just settle for, “I’m fine. I spend a lot of time at the floor of Whole Foods, aisle 7, cradling bottles of Italian soda.”
He goes away. He’s glad that I tell him I’m fine. But the problem is still in aisle 7.
So, I rate a little bit higher. I get the manager, who looks like Rush Limbaugh’s angrier brother. And so, I decide honesty is the best policy this time around. As soon as he gets up there, I try and stand up — standing up looks like you’re in control.
So, I turn to him, and I’m like, “Look, man, I just had my first daughter born not an hour ago across the street from here. And this song is playing.”
He hasn’t heard it. It’s background noise to him. But suddenly he does and his face is blank for a second.
And then, I am buried in man. My shoulder’s getting wet.
All he can sob out to me is, “Mine was born three months ago, too.”