December’s cold bite triggers my memory of the day our now grown daughter was born. It’s foggy, but I remember distinct features. Snow started falling. The cradle my dad crafted arrived on our doorstep. Karyn went into labor and called her principal to report that she wouldn’t be teaching. We walked hallways of the hospital while she slowly labored and, in the dark of the last moments of that day, Anna was born.

Fall semester’s close brings this all back, coinciding with a time when I think about how the term ends for my own students. I always know that I could have done something more, something better. How can I ever make it up to them if they haven’t fully comprehended conservation of energy or the particle-wave duality of light?

We learn from many others, teachers and parents chief among them. I like to think that my students are learning something about the workings of science and the nature of gravity. Yet there are more important lessons. That’s what reminds me of our labor and delivery nurse, Stacie.

Since Anna arrived at ridiculous o’clock, so late that the dark night would blend into the pitch black of the next day, it was 3 a.m. when I prepared for Anna’s first bath. Sleep deprived but still flooded with adrenaline, I was accompanied by Stacie down the hall. Anna was burrito-wrapped and comfortably snuggled, and I would be in charge of making her cold and miserable.

Here’s the thing about parenthood: You’re responsible for bringing a human into this hard-cornered world and all motives focus on how to protect them, cushioning falls, walling off threats and mending disappointment. We introduce and explain shots, war, broccoli, skinned knees, broken hearts and worse. It’s a losing game. And my first task was to keep Anna unaware of any of this for just a bit longer, even though I was about to unswaddle and pour water over her, probably getting soap in her newly opened eyes. The first bath is a daunting beginning for fatherhood, the opportunity to fail my child right away.

I didn’t know how to hold her comfortably, how not to drop her. I wasn’t sure exactly how one hand would pour while the other would secure. And how much soap, and what’s the right water temperature? None of this is hard, and yet it all overwhelmed me. I’d never had a more important task.

In an act of simple grace, Stacie just placed my daughter into my arms and told me with assuring words and a gentle nod that I could do this. I sponged soap over a few strands of light red hair. Anna cried. I clumsily dried her with a warm towel. And Stacie assured me I was doing just fine. And Anna still cried, but then there was the blanket I wrapped and tucked. And it was OK. I held her closer and we both felt better.

I’m at the end of a term wishing I’d done better at keeping up with grading, lamenting that I didn’t give enough time to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. But I know students learned something. More important, I know that they have opportunities to learn the really important lessons from so many around us, a labor and delivery nurse or maybe a kind piano tuner or the soul who pours a cup of coffee. School lessons are important, but lessons of hope and kindness delivered in our simplest interactions are much more so.

Stacie couldn’t know how meaningful it was to me to have her there in that moment where I changed from being the father to being Dad. Helping me swaddle my daughter and assure her that I’d protect her from this cold world, the simple gesture of a nurse helped me see my own capacity as a human. In a life in which we seldom know what we’re doing, it’s invaluable to have those who not only show us the way but assure us we’re capable. I’m grateful to Stacie for helping me see this in myself. I hope I can pass the same along to others.

Adam Johnston is a professor of physics and director of the Center for Science and Mathematics Education at Weber State University, where he helps prepare future teachers and supports educators throughout Utah.

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