The first cry emerges from my child’s lips
It fills me with joy and anxiety at the same time
Will it be the last time I hear my child cry ?
I stand and think about how I’ll explain to her that the dealer shuffles the deck differently when
you’re black and more so if you’re a woman
How I’ll tell my daughter that her cries at birth might be followed by her cries for mercy at the hands of a man as her death approaches
How hands which played a role in delivering her into this world would play a role in sending her out of it as she is brutalized by men
How both her birth and death might be marked by crying albeit for different reasons
How I might one day be called to identify her body as it lay gruesomely hacked apart as though it was ravaged by wild animals
How her killer could be someone she was intimate with or a total
stranger who saw just took a fancy to her but got rejected
How her mother carried her for nine months and suffered through hours of labor pains only for
her daughter to lose her life in a matter of seconds
How I’d have to comfort her mother with tears running down my cheeks
How I’d picture her crying begging her killer to stop
How he saw little value in a life that meant everything to me
These are only some of the thoughts that passed my mind as the doctor moved closer to me with my daughter in her arms
My arms jitter a bit as I take her into my arms careful not to hurt her as she looks fragile
I look at her mother and see in her eyes love joy and the same anxiety
She sees the same in my eyes and smiles as though to allay my fears and worries
I move closer to her and kiss her forehead as we decide the name of our daughter
She gives her the name Ahlume for she hopes she will bloom and blossom into a beautiful
flower
I give her the name Naledi as she is the star that shines in my sky
We name her Rufaro for we wish she’ll know true happiness
Thus concludes the birth of Ahlume Naledi Rufaro Gwadiso my daughter