There was my fair lady...Aminata. The little fragile lady, the reason my heart beat every time. There she sat under the starry sky and in the warm January night. Her beautiful smile, fading off in the gloom that surrounded her heart. Why was she stuck up in the web of all the emotions she would share with me. But I knew my little girl far better than any one else, And I knew she was suffocating with unresolved emotions deep within.
Truth is no one ever teaches a mother the art of telling your little girl that one day, she will feel love and pain. That she will learn sooner than you think that there is actually no line between Love and hate. No, all your life as a mother, you seek to protect your little girl from such a reality. But soon they grow up and they find that man hurts and that the heart has a lot of emotion it feels outside their ability to control.They then find out that there is more to the heart than love, there are words like; heart break and feelings and choice and love and most of all, a lone lover.
It broke my heart to see my once innocent little girl, there trying to figure out what happens in the reality of her life, that she found out that as surely as the day unfolds, her heart will be experiencing emotions far from what she knew. Was it great advise to tell her not to awaken love until it so desires, but when was the right time that love would arise, was it now and I was being aloof to the fact that the season was open in my little girl's life or was I failing to see the grown woman before me?
She finally spoke out,already into the new day. In a soft whisper, she told me the state of her heart. The confusions of growing up and the expectations that are indirectly placed before her. It was not that love was such a mystery, it was the fact that the story was a jumbled one. There she was at the start of life, caught between who to love and who not to, she fought back tears, looking at the past and realizing it was always, one step wrong or one step from never happening.
"Mama, it is hard out there, trying to make sure you do not end up with the wrong person and falling in love only to find a wall...it is the mystery of why the heart finds interest in another soul and yet decides it wants nothing to do with another. It is painful to love and not to be loved back. So much so also for those that love me, but I cannot love them the way they so desire. And the cycle goes on. One moment I am pursuing Christ and another, there is a man in the picture trying to drive me from that course. And yet again am back here, with my heart more messed up than it left"
And the mystery of life was there for Aminata to learn from but most of all to deal with. At least my little lady was not drowning in indifference. Yes, the journey of love is one everyone walks differently, I could never find the right words to tell my daughter, other than the truth that, someday this will be all worth it.
And as I sat there, not wishing upon the stars but gazing in the dead of night, I knew the face of strong, vulnerable and love. I knew the image of Aminata's heart and I knew, behind all the facade of self confidence and boldness and wordiness, my little girl was as human as she could. Because she was capable of feeling love, just not yet lucky to find it.
Truth is no one ever teaches a mother the art of telling your little girl that one day, she will feel love and pain. That she will learn sooner than you think that there is actually no line between Love and hate. No, all your life as a mother, you seek to protect your little girl from such a reality. But soon they grow up and they find that man hurts and that the heart has a lot of emotion it feels outside their ability to control.They then find out that there is more to the heart than love, there are words like; heart break and feelings and choice and love and most of all, a lone lover.
It broke my heart to see my once innocent little girl, there trying to figure out what happens in the reality of her life, that she found out that as surely as the day unfolds, her heart will be experiencing emotions far from what she knew. Was it great advise to tell her not to awaken love until it so desires, but when was the right time that love would arise, was it now and I was being aloof to the fact that the season was open in my little girl's life or was I failing to see the grown woman before me?
She finally spoke out,already into the new day. In a soft whisper, she told me the state of her heart. The confusions of growing up and the expectations that are indirectly placed before her. It was not that love was such a mystery, it was the fact that the story was a jumbled one. There she was at the start of life, caught between who to love and who not to, she fought back tears, looking at the past and realizing it was always, one step wrong or one step from never happening.
"Mama, it is hard out there, trying to make sure you do not end up with the wrong person and falling in love only to find a wall...it is the mystery of why the heart finds interest in another soul and yet decides it wants nothing to do with another. It is painful to love and not to be loved back. So much so also for those that love me, but I cannot love them the way they so desire. And the cycle goes on. One moment I am pursuing Christ and another, there is a man in the picture trying to drive me from that course. And yet again am back here, with my heart more messed up than it left"
And the mystery of life was there for Aminata to learn from but most of all to deal with. At least my little lady was not drowning in indifference. Yes, the journey of love is one everyone walks differently, I could never find the right words to tell my daughter, other than the truth that, someday this will be all worth it.
And as I sat there, not wishing upon the stars but gazing in the dead of night, I knew the face of strong, vulnerable and love. I knew the image of Aminata's heart and I knew, behind all the facade of self confidence and boldness and wordiness, my little girl was as human as she could. Because she was capable of feeling love, just not yet lucky to find it.
