rebirth 9.19.08

My daughter was born on September 19th, 2008. It was, by far, the most miraculous day of my life. I've rattled off the details of Amali's birth so many times that I can do it in my sleep. But I never mention the second event that took place along with her birth---my own rebirth.

It is such a beautiful thing to come together with someone and create something new. I can create a damn good portrait by myself, but to have another artist come and bless my portrait with his talented hands is just heavenly. I understand now, more than ever, why childbirth was meant to be shared between husband and wife, and experienced in an atmosphere of true love.

My daughter deserves to thrive, without having her spirit squelched by drama that manifested itself before she even took her first breath. Its an unfair mark against her before she even gets off the bench and into the game. She shouldn't have to be shifted from home to home on weekends like a grocery bag with unwanted belongings in it. She shouldn't have to get her support check in the mail. She shouldn't have to call her daddy on the phone to tell him "good night". Her father and I should be the ones to show her what true love is like, so that when she's grown, she won't have to use trial and error to find out. We were supposed to give her a solid foundation to stand on. It was our job to give her a running start.

I will tell her that I don't know for sure what went so wrong. I will tell her that I adored her father. I will tell her that he never put his hands on me and that he always knew how to put a smile on my face. I'll tell her that I knew from the moment I saw him that I would give him a child. I'll tell her that he was my kryptonite.

My kryptonite; not because the sight of him makes my knees quiver...nothing so silly as that. He was my kryptonite because he was the first and only man who convinced me to trust his judgment over my own. I would have followed him into a mud hut if that's what he believed we should call home. He was who I trusted after nineteen years of not trusting.

I was born into a situation that contradicted my ability to trust men. My father's absence was a rainy cloud that hung over my head...reminding me that I wasn't worth shit. Not worth a phone call, not worth a letter, not worth a card on my birthday. Everything he did to my mother filtered down to me. She was my model and if she, who worked soo hard, didn't deserve his help and support, then surely I was undeserving of anything worth having. My life has not been free of pain, but there was no pain like the hard lessons he taught me through his example. I learned:

1.) Men will leave you.
2.)They will come back, and you ought to be so grateful to see them that you must welcome them as if they never left.
3.) Men will leave, again.
4.) Your tears don't matter.
5.) If it doesn't hurt, it isn't love.
6.) Pain is a natural thing that all women must bear.

My biggest fear in life has always been that I won't make conscious decisions in order to shield my own daughter from the pain I endured as the daughter of a man and a woman who didn't love each other properly.

When I found out that I was having a girl I was so hurt...I thought, "what a load she'll carry...to be black, to be woman, to be born to parents who may or may not be together..."

I trusted her father to prove that all men don't have pockets full of hurt, ready to hurl them full force at unsuspecting women. It wouldn't have been his job to prove this to me, except that he told me the kind of man he would be. He gave me his word.

I took a gamble on my future...knowing the possibility of my biggest fear becoming manifest. Even when she was just a thought in my mind, my daughter was the most precious jewel in the world to me. I loved her so much when she was just an idea, and I chose HIM to share her with me. I trusted him to be there. I trusted him to cover us with his strength, steadfastness, and intelligence, so that any pain my daughter and I inevitably felt would never be caused by him.

He didn't understand that, just as my mother's pain is also mine, my pain will be Amali's. He didn't understand that there's no separating her from our situation. She's a victim of each of our decisions as parents...and a victim of each of our imperfections as people.

I will tell her that her father is a good man. I will tell her that he tries to be his best. But I know I'll also have to explain the pain. I'll have to tell her that her father wasn't the man that he should have been...that I was fragile during my pregnancy, and he didn't handle me with care...and that he never even said he was sorry. I'll have to admit to her what I've never even admitted to him: that the realization that we might not be together sent my soul shooting out of my body to land on the ground and die.

It wasn't just lost love...I've dealt with that before...it was my precious jewel's future at stake. Us walking away from each other was like accepting that for our daughter, there would have to be pain.

I didn't want my daughter to learn the same lessons I did; I didn't want her to ever even have to open that book...

In the hospital, after she was born, he had his chance. I hadn't been free of wrong, but surely birthing his child was enough? Surely the fact that I welcomed him with hugs and smiles was enough? Surely sharing the most beautiful baby in the world with him was enough to make him think about the magnitude of what he had done? Or hadn't done? In that moment, in the beauty of her birth, I was willing to forget it all, grab him by the hand, and conquer the world with our baby on my back. Had he apologized, I could have forgiven right then and there and never looked back. But he didn't say anything. I waited patiently...and it didn't come. Not in the days we spent in the hospital. Not after we left. And months later, it hasn't come.

And maybe that is for the best.

I won't wait anymore. I am not the woman I used to be. Through my example, I am showing my daughter what is and isnt acceptable from men. I want to teach her a lesson of my own:

1) Men who do not honor their words, and who do not make right their wrongs, do not deserve your friendship, your respect, and your unconditional love.

I will tell her that her father is beautiful...that once his outer layers are peeled away, there's a strong revolutionary at his core, meant to do great things in this lifetime and in the next. I will tell her that I will always have smiles for him...that when he matures, I'm confident he'll know how to give to a woman all that he never gave me.

I want her to know that I still believe in him. And I want her to know that despite ourselves, he and I love each other, and we love her...very much.

But I will not allow the guilt of not creating the perfect picture for my daughter to keep me lost in a dream...a slave to a mentality that convinces me that its my job to secure the love I never witnessed between my mother and father, at the expense of my dignity and self-worth. I deserve flowers from him. I deserve to be treated like gold.

These days, though, I know that I can't force anyone to give me what I believe I deserve. I know that I don't make the rules, and now, I don't want to call the shots.

Since my rebirth, I don't mourn my father's absence. I know who my real Father is. My conversations with Him and prayers to Him are enough.

xoxo
allaisia hanan