'Something close to joy in the humbling tasks'

I was not seeking to have more children when I met Lisa. I had a son and daughter from my first marriage and, in my mid-40s, it felt a bit late to jump back into the nursery.

Love, however, requires concessions, and another turn at fatherhood hardly felt onerous. I certainly had the template down: I'd be the breadwinner, the second-shift relief, and the weekend warrior. That was the plan.

Then the horrific happened. Three days after the birth of our son, Grayson, Lisa was diagnosed with late-stage metastatic lung cancer. She was swept away with breathtaking swiftness. Within five weeks I was alone, shattered and grief-stricken.

Gone, too, was any semblance of the life I had known or imagined.

I had been an ambitious, career-focused manager, impatient to get ahead. I came to learn that infants are immune to ambition, that toddlers recognize no career path.

I had no idea how I would navigate what was coming. I deserve no credit that I managed. I did no more than generations of single parents - mostly women - have done. Surely I had more resources than most.

Grayson's grandmothers enveloped us with love and support. My sister, Kathy, took him for days at a time when he was an infant so I could return to work.

Still my life was reordered in myriad ways.

To start, career thoughts were set aside. I stepped down as an editor and returned to reporting so I had the flexibility to raise my son.

A middle-aged man used to indulging his own whims, I was now subject to the dictates of a child.

Doctor appointments, day-care schedules, playdates, birthday parties, (later) teacher meetings, and sleepovers filled my calendar.

In the early years, my overnight bag included diapers and formula. A baby seat and stroller, atypical for the average single male, were standard in my car.

With my frequent weekday attendance at day-care picnics, preschool field trips, and kindergarten talent shows, I was given a pass into the secret club of moms, where conversation tends to mac-and-cheese, potty-training tips, and babysitters. I was exempted from breast-feeding debates. It was obvious I was a Similac man.

Eventually, I fell in love again and remarried. Grayson was 6 when Megan and her daughter Isabella entered our lives a decade ago. I take pride, though, that Lisa's mother, Ruth, continued to send me a card each Mother's Day.

It was appropriate, because somewhere along the way I had fallen victim to what, in less enlightened times, might have been labeled maternal love - that irrational state of complete emotional surrender to a creature that as often as not is oblivious to us.

Maybe it was daily hand-in-hand walks to the corner day-care, or the uncounted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or simply Grayson's unbridled enthusiasm, but he seeped into my every cell.

I found something close to joy in the most humbling tasks of child rearing - the wiping of bottoms, the sleepless nights, the waiting on toddlers.

As Gray grew older, simply seeing him search for me in a crowd could take my breath away.

At 16, he now shades me by an inch. He's a beautiful, confident young man who looks the world like his mother. He does not know it, but I ache a little each and every time I catch sight of him anew.

And each time I'm reminded how much I owe Lisa, who gave me so much in life, but, sadly, so much more in death.

I hope I've done her gift justice.

Did you make pancakes on Sundays? Or drive cross country together?

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