Tomato Baby and Baby Tomatoes
A story, a poem, a video, and the importance of documenting joy.
Hey reader, I split this post into three sections with a wrap-up at the end. Feel free to read them in any order you like - choose your journey. Let me know what journey you decided to take at the end. Thank you, for reading.
7 Weeks
Dear Myles,
I. The Story
It was the week of your baby shower, and many of our friends and family flew into town to celebrate your arrival. Your Uncle Yosh and Wesley were staying with us - a lot of personalities under one roof. Uncle Yosh, a loving chiropractor who loves to offer treatment at the sight of any ache; Uncle Wesley, a gifted painter, musician, and talker; and mommy, experiencing all the emotions of a 9-month pregnant woman who would much rather be in her own house away from everyone, including me, at the moment.
Somehow, after a long hike, we found ourselves at Home Depot. Uncle Wesley was eager to paint a family portrait of me, you, and Mommy. "I'll be right back, I won't be long," Uncle Wesley said as he closed the car door. He did a light jog on the balls of his feet when he was excited- he was off to pick up some paint. Uncle Yosh, on the other hand, wasn't going to let time pass by just sitting in the car. "I want to get you a tomato plant," he said to me. Leaving Mommy in the car, we made our way to the Garden Center of Home Depot.
With me in tow, Yosh put a few tomato plants through what I could only call a Goldilocks test. One tomato plant was too large, another too small, and this one already had too many tomatoes. After we circled the aisles for a few minutes, he finally found the one he came for. "This one will give you a bunch of tomatoes in a couple of weeks," he said. This specific one already had flowers. My green thumb, still yellow even now, had no idea fruits come after the flowers have come and bloomed.
After all the baby shower festivities, Uncle Yosh returned to Rochester, and Uncle Wesley went back to Jersey. They left us with pieces that remind us of themselves - a painting and a tomato plant
II. The Poem
Growing Things
Growing things
Things been growing things down here
Things I've been trying to grow for years
Roots never stuck no matter how much we prayed for growth.
Rained, couldn't even pull the stems from the dirt
But things are growing down here
Things on every kind of vine—
Fast too
Some started in a few weeks other ones been baking under Alabama sun close to 9 months;
Tomatoes and a child
Both relying on me
A man who's never been taught to farm
Has to water seed, still thirsty himself
Prune leaves with thorny hands
Feeling around his own dirt
Things been growing down here
III. The Video
IV. Documenting Joy
It's important for me to save and share these moments with you. At times, I feel like I'm actively fighting a narrative surrounding masculinity and fatherhood that's not necessarily mine - I'll write about this more later. But I want you to know, I am happy to be your dad. I hope you never have to read fiction to find father figures like I did. I hope you never have to watch sitcoms of families that look like ours to see the love between your parents. I hope you never have to revel in jealousy over a friend's dad that's not yours. I hope the question "why he don't love me, man?" never crosses your lips. I hope you never have to rely on someone else to tell you about me.
Along with all the moments we will have together, I want you to have these tangible, albeit virtual, moments of seeing me happy and gushing with joy over you. These videos, pictures, and letters I write to you, are me. I'm here, and I'm present, and for as long as God allows it - I ain't going nowhere."
Love,
Dad
Love the video. Wish you had posted Wesley finish painting. Good work Marc!
Two gifts that keep on giving. This was so sweet.