By Tiro Makhudu
I seldom write about myself. It is what I believe, we believe, as writers at least, to be the hallmark of a real writer. The keen observer, objectively watching from a distance, holding no emotion in either direction but for some reason, moulding, shaping, meddling and influencing. We call it social commentary and for the most part we have the noblest of intentions.
But does this really mean we keep ourselves well outside of the text we present to the world as possible gospel? If it is indeed so, what is it exactly we are trying to hide? I gave neither of these questions too much room in the closets of my writing psyche because I hadn’t been confronted with them until I had a profound dream that dragged me from my bed to write, quite possibly for the first time, a personal account but not about politics or culture or the plight of the illiterate poor which is my daily struggle by virtue of being an African and more because I’m both illiterate and poor. But I wrote, to my surprise, about the daughter I haven’t yet had had!
I wondered where I would store this honesty in my writing for her to see one day and this is why you see it here today but also perhaps to force an epiphany upon your consciousness that will have you writing honestly to the world. I want her to know, once she has discovered all of my strengths and weakness, fineness and flaws, that one perfect thing waited for her before she even came and that is my unconditional love.
So, heaving from the sheer shock of this dream, I took a pen to paper, ignoring my laptop a mere few feet away and began to write:
Dear Future Daughter
Tonight I met you for the first time as I searched for your life over your mother’s belly, swollen with life and like the miracle you are going to be, the touch of you surged through my body with a love indescribable and a vulnerability that made me never want to let you go. In that moment, our palms touched and slowly our fingers interlocked, somehow fitting perfectly.
And with your face, the envy of angels, pressed against the gentle belly that kept you, I kissed and saw it for the first time and my ribs could hardly contain the content of my chest. I saw your mother smile, her soft lips and the tiny fangs on end of her beautiful smile. Her eyes were the reflection of the happiness I felt but even though it all seemed so familiar, I must admit, I haven’t met her as yet.
Just then I was compelled to rise from my slumber as if summoned by a demon to write this first moment we met just as I remembered it then. This is not a poem my precious one. It is a declaration that I will go to the ends of the world to find your mother because only her will make us possible and I, personally, cannot wait to meet you.
The time is 23:07 Tuesday the 7th of March 2017 and today I met you for the first time, my beautiful, future daughter.
PS: You have an older brother and once you visit his dreams, he too will be eager to meet you.
By Tiro Makhudu
Tiro Makhudu is an aspiring writer who has written for several local television productions and a voice screaming the narrative that needs to be heard with no one willing it to tell it. With an unapologetic, no nonsense approach, Tiro holds no punches and purports to wake the spirit of his fellow man with the belief that that woke spirit will translate into a sharp and pro-African weapon of a mind that will deliver the African from his mind, body and soul penitentiary. An Africanist through and through and all round social commentator, Tiro seeks to plant his tiny seedlings in the landscape of the discourse that will one day give rise to the brightest Africa that the winds of change and hands of time will allow.
