A Father's Love (5 page)

Bruna's mother and brother especially enjoyed New Jersey's proximity to New York. Ray liked the relatively quick jaunt to Atlantic City to visit the casinos. I became his “designated driver,” since Ray did not have a driver's license. He gave up driving, he said, because he got too angry at the other drivers who cut him off in traffic. In Brazil, he would walk, take a taxi, or have a private driver take him to his destination. But even as a passenger, he would yell at other motorists. When Silvana was with him, she would constantly say, “Bahinio”—his nickname—“calm down!”

Although I'm not much of a gambler—I occasionally placed a five-dollar chip on “lifeguard red” on the roulette table—I was in love with his daughter and knew she was the one for me. So, if driving Ray down to the casinos made him happy, I did it. He was, after all, my father-in-law-to-be, and he enjoyed it, so I was the accommodating son-in-law-to-be. I also took him and Silvana, along with my dad, Bruna, and one of her friends, to Yankee Stadium to see a baseball game, and when the weather turned cold, Ray and I went to a New Jersey Devils hockey game.

During that first summer that Bruna and I were together, the New Jersey real estate market was soft and prices were attractive for buyers. Bruna's parents decided it might be an excellent time to purchase some property in America. Historically, Brazil occasionally froze its citizens' bank accounts, and Ray seemed worried that something similar could happen again sometime. He wanted to invest some of his money outside of his homeland, similar to what Bruna's aunt had done by purchasing a home in Portugal. So the idea of Ray and Silvana having a place in the United States was not as foreign as it might seem.

My mom, who had her real estate license, and I offered to help Ray find the right place, but I also spoke straightforwardly to him, man to man. “I understand you may want to buy a place, but there are two things we need to make clear. I don't want you to feel pressure because of Bruna's and my relationship that you should purchase property here. And second, on the other hand, I don't want you to feel that you would be pressuring me by buying a place here.” I wanted to be sure that if Ray and Silvana bought property, it was because they wanted to, not in any way because of Bruna and me.

Ray seemed to appreciate my forthrightness. He later told me, “I knew all along that you and my daughter were going to be married.”

While Bruna and I were still dating, and everyone was staying at my place, her parents purchased a condo on the Jersey coast. Mom and I helped them negotiate a good price on one unit in a beautiful complex, complete with a pool and overlooking the ocean on Island View Way, in Sea Bright, New Jersey. Bruna and I frequently went over to Sea Bright to spend the day at the Ribeiros' condo, or at their pool or the beach.

Silvana was always kind to me, giving, caring, and pleasant. Yet at the same time I couldn't help noticing there was something in her eyes that seemed cold and distant. I didn't see anything weird at the time, but I realized that her son had a similar expression in his eyes. I'm a tolerant person, though, and figured that they were merely different from me. Besides, I was beginning to like the close familial relationship I had formed with all of them.

Sometimes my friends would ask me, “How can you deal with them being here all the time?”

“We get along. They are close with Bruna, and I respect that. Bruna is here, so I understand their wanting to be close to her. I love close families.” To me it wasn't about butting heads or having to have my own way. I'm pretty easygoing by nature, so it was no problem for me to have the extended family members around Bruna and me. We also included my mom, dad, and my sister and her husband, Chris, in our activities whenever it was convenient for them. We were one big, happy family.

 

 

IN 1999, I gave Bruna an engagement ring I'd designed myself, made from diamonds drawn from my mother's, my grandmother's, and my great-grandmother's rings—the three most cherished women in my life up to that point. The ring was a unique way to express to Bruna how special she was to me. I had no doubt that we would be together for the rest of our lives.

We discussed getting married in Italy, because that was where we'd met, but the logistics of getting our family members there would have been a nightmare, not to mention the red tape involved in dealing with the Italian bureaucracy. Eventually, we decided that it would be much easier to get married in New Jersey while her parents were visiting. There was never any real question about where we would live—both Bruna and her parents were keen on her living close to New York, but in a comfortable, safe place.

On December 17, 1999, Bruna and I were married in Eatontown, New Jersey, in a private ceremony attended only by our parents and my grandmother. Bruna was twenty-four years old, and I was thirtyone. The town mayor presided over the wedding ceremony. We had a small reception for the family at Molly Pitcher Inn, a well-known banquet location overlooking the Navesink River in Red Bank. In January 2000 we traveled to Brazil and had a big party with Bruna's extended family members and friends. While in Brazil, we went to visit the town of Bahia, where her father was born. From there, Bruna and I spent our honeymoon at a nearby Club Med resort. When we returned to the States, we set up housekeeping in the town house.

During the early months of our marriage, I continued to do modeling shoots, but I turned down all long-distance trips that would have taken me away from home for more than a few days. Bruna understood the fashion business, the travel requirements, and how, as a model, I might need to be gone for a day or two, then get to be home for three or four days. Even though we were so close to New York, and as well connected as I was with many people in the fashion industry, Bruna was uneasy about the idea of working in the city. She didn't want to make the daily commute. Instead, she began to teach an evening class in Italian at Brookdale Community College, near our home.

When we learned that Bruna was pregnant, I was overjoyed. I loved her with all my heart, and creating a new life together just made everything perfect. Other than my college girlfriend, I'd had only one other serious relationship, one that lasted about four years. That woman was special to me, and I will always cherish the memories of that time. For a while I thought that she might be “the one,” but things ultimately didn't work out. We were apart for long periods of time, both of us being models and traveling a great deal.

But when I met Bruna, something in me woke up. It was a yearning to be a dad, to have a family, to raise a child with the woman I would be with forever. To me, Bruna was the right woman at the right time, and in my heart and mind, we were destined to be together and to bring a precious little baby into the world. I couldn't have been happier.

Bruna had an easy pregnancy; she wasn't sick, and she seemed to glow with the joy of imminent motherhood. I didn't really want to know in advance whether our child was a girl or a boy, but Bruna did. I acquiesced, and the ultrasound revealed that we were having a boy. “Okay, that's great,” I said. “We can paint the upstairs bedroom blue.” We enjoyed picking out baby clothes for a little boy, getting his nursery ready, and seeing to all the myriad details involved in preparing for a baby.

At the baby shower, Bruna stood up and in a heartfelt gesture expressed her gratitude to all of our relatives. “I thank you for accepting me, and I feel as if we are one big family,” she gushed.

On May 25, 2000, we welcomed a child into our world. At the moment of his birth, the umbilical cord was 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 intelligence in their heads and no courage in their guts, I wanted to be different; I wanted to be the kind of dad my son could look at and of whom he could say, “That's what it means to be a man.”

I realized, of course, that I would probably make some mistakes in raising him. I could read every book from Dr. Spock to Dr. Phil and still feel pretty clueless and inadequate regarding how to raise a child. Someone once said that parenting is like trying to put together a puzzle when you're not sure you have all the pieces. It never dawned on me that parenting requires patience—and lots of it—because I didn't look at parenting as a chore. Nothing about it seemed taxing or burdensome to me. I felt that I was the luckiest guy in the world to have a wife and son in my life. I honestly believed that if I kept doing the right things long enough, my son would learn how to live right.

Sean's birth completed my world. I had traveled around the globe and seen so many things; now I was ready to settle down. Sure, I still enjoyed work, and the annual golf trip with the guys, but I had far more important priorities now. I was a dad! I knew that I couldn't be a great father “in my spare time,” that the myth of quality time—“Oh, I can't always give my son a lot of time, but I'll give him
quality
time”—was just that, a myth. My responsibilities as a father now determined my priorities, and as far as I was concerned, my wife and child were my top priorities. I wanted nothing more than to be a great husband and father. I recognized that being a dad meant more than merely bringing home a paycheck, more than merely going through the motions of being a good husband and father.

Looking at our baby boy in his bassinet, I realized I wanted to
be there
for my son. I wanted to be there when he stood up on his pudgy little legs and took his first steps, when he said his first words. I wanted to be there for his first day of school. I wanted to be there when he worked up his nerve to dive into our swimming pool for the first time. I could hardly wait to help him learn how to ride a bicycle. And I could scarcely imagine the thrill we would both feel the day he caught his first big fish off the back of a boat. This was going to be good.

As I gazed into Sean's face, I rededicated my life to my wife and to my beautiful baby boy. I had always enjoyed being at home with Bruna, but once Sean was born, I wanted to be at home even more often. I tried not to book prolonged business trips away from home, accepting mostly local modeling jobs and working in New York City whenever I could.