“I was a teller at a bank. I was working the front and couldn’t...

“I was a teller at a bank.  I was working the front and couldn’t talk on the phone, so she sent me a text.  She sent two texts actually.  The first one said ‘I’m pregnant.’  And the second one said: ‘It’s twins.’  We weren’t even living together at that point.  I was only making $28,000 a year.  I wasn’t ready.  They were born three months premature.  But if my wife was scared, she never showed it.  She went from nothing to Mom in no time.  She told me exactly what to do.  It was never domineering.  She just knew.  The first months were terrible.  We were sleeping two hours a night.  I was waking up for work at seven.  It felt like I was living in a dream state.  And I kept thinking: ‘I don’t think I can do this.’  And that feeling stayed for a long time.  Things are a bit easier now.  But it never feels like I’m done.  I go to work, then come home, then it’s homework, then it’s bed.  I’m dead tired at the end of the day.  I don’t know if I’m doing a good job.  I never felt like Dad.  I just felt like some figure they called ‘Dad.’  It somehow felt like my wife was their mom, and I was just there for support.  I felt like a babysitter.  Like I was watching someone else’s kids.  I never knew what a dad was supposed to be like.  It wasn’t in me.  I didn’t know how to show it.  I took care of them.  I loved them.  But I didn’t really hug or kiss them.  I wasn’t comfortable with it.  Probably because it was never done to me.  But I’m different now.  I hug and kiss them every night.  But that’s because they taught me.  They’d come up to me and say ‘Daddy, I love you.’  And they’d hug me and kiss me.  So that’s what I do now.  But it didn’t come from me.  Everything came from them.”