FATHERHOOD
I had no idea what I was doing.
Some moments divide your life in two.
There was the person I was before I became a father, and the person I became afterward. Suddenly life wasn't only about where I was going. Someone else was coming along for the ride.
Everything Changed.
Jemma Diamond arrived by emergency C-section, and just like that, I was somebody's dad.
Nothing really prepares you for that moment. You're handed this tiny person and somehow expected to know what comes next.
I didn't.
Two Daughters.
Two completely different people.
Jemma
Choryse
The Ordinary Stuff
At the time, none of it seemed particularly historic. Birthdays. Christmas mornings. School pictures. Vacations. Car rides. Sitting around the house.
They were just normal days.
Funny how many of the moments you eventually treasure are the ones you barely noticed while they were happening.
You don't know you're living a memory while it's happening.
And Somehow They Grew Up.
Childhood feels endless when you're in the middle of it.
Then suddenly the toys disappear. The school years end. Their lives become their own.
The little girls in all those photographs exist mostly in memories now.
When Things Got Complicated.
Families don't follow scripts.
There were difficult years. Relationships changed. Circumstances changed. The girls got older, and fatherhood became something very different from what it had been when they were little.
There are things I got right and things I would do differently if life came with a rewind button.
It doesn't.
So you keep going.
Then & Now
Still Dad.
They grew up. I changed. Life got complicated.
But through every version of my life, one thing remained.
Of all the titles I've had in my life, this is one that never went away.