At that moment...

 

That day........ for most part of that day, he remembered only about pacing back and forth, straining his ears for a sound, watching the doors with so much anticipation for a vision. The anxiety, nervousness and the fear, was nothing he had ever experienced in his life.

 

Life? oh life seemed have stopped moving in that corridor, every tick and every tock of the clock was hammering in his ears, for he waited with batted breath for a word.

 And then he heard, the fierce, angry, agitated cry, but for his ears it felt like music. The first sound through the doors and the world stopped at that second. There was no tick tock and no sound. Absolute stillness and then he saw the vision. The vision of his dreams, the vision of his future, the vision of his new identity.

 The lady smiled at him and said something, but his ears couldn’t hear her voice, for it was straining to hear the sound of the little bundle in her hands. The small being, which was looking at him with big black eyes.

 And then everything returned, the ticks and tocks, the hugs and slaps on the back, the smiles and greetings, the sound of joy and happiness. But he couldn’t look anywhere other than the eyes.

 Congrats, it’s a girl ! she said.

 It just helped him to say “her” eyes, he didn’t care about the gender. All he could see was that it was his baby. Am a father he thought. Oh My God ! he thought, ‘am a father. Am a father.’

 He looked up to see the smiling faces bent down towards her. ‘I need to sit down’ he thought.

 The new grandma took the baby from his hands and he sat down thinking ‘Am a father. It is unbelievable. But I don’t know anything about being a father. All these days we waited for the child, we talked about her becoming a mother. But why didn’t we ever speak of me being a father.’

 His heart beat raised with every question and with every raise, he questioned more. ‘What am I supposed to do now? Where should I begin? Will somebody teach me how to be a father or am I supposed to learn on my own. Oh my god, should I learn this on trail and error basis? What if I don’t get it right? What if I mess it up? What if she never loves me?’

 That last question was unthinkable for him. And he looked up searching for her, and saw that her uncle was cooing to her while his wife held her.

 And at that moment all he could think was ‘they don’t have a baby of their own, what if they drop her?’

 He went towards them and graciously took her back into his arms and sat down thinking, ‘what if she never loves me?’

 And then she opened her beautiful eyes, looked at him and grasped his finger with her tiny hand and closed her eyes. The world seemed perfect at that moment. His manner softened, and he thought ‘Even if I stumble my baby girl is there to hold me up. He said proudly to himself - Am a father’ and he smiled while a drop of tear slide down his cheek.