Dear Josephine

Dear Josephine,

It’s been about 36 hours since you came into the world, and you’ve already changed my life forever.

I’ve been waiting for you for the past nine months, but now that you’re here, I realize that I’ve been preparing for you all my life. I thought everything I was doing up until now was for myself, but now it feels that it was all for you. I needed to learn and grow as much as I could so that I can give you the best possible life.

When your mother and I found out that she was pregnant, we cried and hugged. We didn’t even know you were a girl yet and we did not have a name picked out for you back then. But we were so excited about you. I remember going to the first ultrasound appointment and seeing you for the first time and crying tears of joy. 

I want you to know that your mom was amazing taking care of you all this time. She made every single sacrifice that a mother can possibly make to provide the best outcome for a baby, and she cut zero corners along the way, not even a sip of wine (and she loves wine). She was scared of so many things: how her body would change, the pain and the hormonal changes, giving birth, and perhaps above all, sacrificing so many things we enjoy so that we can take great care of you. But she was still very eager to prepare for you, working tirelessly on your nursery with me and your grandfather and taking classes with me to prepare for taking care of you. She read lots of books. She did an awesome job through labor and delivery, and as I’m writing this, she’s holding you and smiling at you.

When you finally arrived, I was overwhelmed and I immediately started crying. It was the best moment of my life. Your mom was worried something was wrong, but I told her I was just so happy. I’ve cried many times in my life, but I can count on one hand the number of times that I cried tears of joy. More than half of those times belong to you: when I finished the Boston Marathon, when I saw your mom in her wedding dress, when we found out we were having you, when I saw you on the ultrasound, and when you were born.

I want you to know that you have already made so many people so happy. You are the first grandchild for your four grandparents. I’m so happy that you were born with all of your grandparents. I hope they live as long as possible so they can enjoy spending time with you and so that you can love them as much as we do. They were so excited to come visit you yesterday and they have been sending pictures of you non-stop to their friends. Your aunts and uncles have also started visiting and the rest are looking forward to seeing you around Christmas. You also have a 94 year old great grandmother who is over the moon about you and I’m going to get a photo of you, me, her, and your grandmother (she will be called “Bubbie”) so that we can document four generations in our family. And soon you will come home and meet our dog Jack and our cat Zoe who are going to be your best friends. Some of us have begun calling you Josie, but you’ll pick out the nickname you ultimately want for yourself.

Everyone had told me that having a baby was a life-changing event, but there is no way to describe to you the feeling I have about you. It is above and beyond anything anyone had said to me. You are so perfect, and everyone keeps raving about how cute you are. Sometimes, I just stand above you while you are sleeping and smile for a long time for no reason just because I am in awe of how wonderful you are. Holding you for the first time was a special feeling that I will never forget.

I’m so excited for you to see the world. I know that I will be in awe of what you do. I used to tell people about my “why” – my personal ambitions for myself, which has a lot to do with helping other people. I want to achieve that by being a screenwriter someday, or maybe starting my own company, or maybe both. Now that you’re here, those things seem a lot less important. You are my “why.”

You will figure this out on your own, but I am a big Boston sports fan. I’m looking forward to making you one, too. I feel a little sorry for you that you were born after Tom Brady retired, but that’s not your fault. We’ll enjoy many ups and downs together. Your mom and I both love hockey, and the Boston Bruins are my favorite team in all of sports. Last night, you and I watched our first Bruins game together. I held you on my lap and your eyes were mostly closed because you’re still adjusting, but you saw some of it here and there. We lost the game, but don’t worry, I don’t think you’re bad luck or anything like that (unless we keep losing more of them, in which case I might put you in a different room for a little while). I’m only kidding.

I am Jewish, and even though your mother is Christian, being Jewish will always be some part of you. I want to be honest with you and let you know that the last couple of months leading up to you being born were very hard for me because there has been a lot of hatred towards Jewish people lately. I’m ashamed to admit this, but I was almost a little remorseful about bringing you into the world because of that. But then I remembered that it’s actually more important than ever that no matter what you believe in during your life, that you carry on our culture and our traditions so that no one can erase us – no matter how hard they try. I’m very grateful to you for that reason, among many others.

One of the most enjoyable parts of having you is seeing your mom so naturally be such a good mother to you. I admire her so much for everything that she does for both of us. I know you had no say in it, but you really are a lucky baby. On your second night, you slept in the nursery, and when you came back, we told each other how much we had missed you when you were gone. We did not want you out of our sight. We’re so excited to be your parents.

This is only the beginning, and if we feel this way about you now, I can’t wait to see how we will feel as we watch you continue to grow. I want you to dream as big as you possibly can because we will do everything we can to help you achieve the highest heights possible. You are such a god-send and you will do wonderful things.

I love you,

Dad

P.S. You now have two-thirds of the lifetime happy cries.