A Father's Love by David Goldman Read Free Book Online

wrapped tightly around his neck and he couldn’t breathe. The doctors acted quickly, though, and in a matter of moments we heard the strong cries of an adorable baby boy. He was a big boy, too, weighing eight pounds, eight ounces.
    We named him Sean Richard Goldman, and I was thrilled. Neither Bruna nor I had any relatives by the name of Sean, but we liked the name and we thought that it might be easy to pronounce in both America and Brazil. Our only connection to it was a John Lennon song that we liked, “Beautiful Boy.” We chose Sean’s middle name in honor of my beloved late uncle Richard, one of the kindest, most wonderful men I had ever known.
    Several years later, I learned that in 1983, former president Ronald Reagan had proclaimed May 25 as National Missing Children’s Day, calling attention to the thousands of children who are abducted internationally by a parent or a family member each year. How ironic that Sean should be born on that day.
    Sean was born in a beautiful birthing room in Riverview Hospital in Red Bank, but because Bruna had suffered some vaginal tearing while giving birth, she ended up being displeased with the whole experience there. Bruna and I talked about having a couple of kids, at least, because we didn’t want Sean to be an only child. After Sean’s birth, she often reminded me, “When we have another child, I want to have the baby in Brazil.”
    Bruna’s parents had come to the States for the birth, and afterward, Silvana was adamant in insisting that the Brazilian medical facilities were better than those in the United States. I didn’t agree, but kept my opinion about Silvana’s rantings to myself, since Sean was a beautiful, healthy baby. I knew from my travels that people came from all around the world to the United States to be treated by our top-quality physicians and hospitals. So if Silvana was convinced otherwise, it really didn’t affect me.
    I was too busy adoring our newborn son. Every time I looked at our beautiful baby boy—with his perfectly formed tiny fingers and toes; his tufts of soft, fine hair; his cherub’s cheeks—I gave thanks to God for a healthy baby. I was ecstatic, and delighted to be a dad.
    As I gazed into Sean’s barely open eyes, it hit me that most of what this little guy was going to learn about life—at least the most important things—he would learn from Bruna and me. And while I had absolute confidence that Bruna would be a loving, caring mother, I knew the moment I saw Sean that there were many things about life that he could learn only from me.
    Although I didn’t consider myself an expert, I had learned much from my dad and my uncle Richard. I assumed that Sean would learn best by my example, that my attitudes toward love, marriage, family, materialism, education, and faith would have a profound influence on shaping his values. What he would see in me would be even more important than what he would hear from his peers—at least during the formative years of his life—and perhaps even more important than what he might hear from other relatives. I wanted him to see good things in me.
    Above all, I wanted to be a role model for him. In my modeling career, I had played many roles in advertising campaigns and television commercials. Photographers had dressed me up as everything from a rough-and-tumble sports star to a suave, sophisticated “man about town.” But what I would be for Sean was no act; this was no fancy suit of expensive clothes that I would wear for a few hours and then shed for something more comfortable or convenient. No, I was Sean’s dad for life! I somehow inherently understood that being a father was the most important role of my life. Especially in our day and age, when television and movies so often portray dads as inept buffoons, or obsessed absentee workaholics, or wimpy, overly permissive Mr. Nice Guys, men who have no ethics, morals, or