Glass Wall

The first time I saw you, I felt nothing, there were no sparks, no magic, no feeling at all or maybe I was just distracted by your presence and was still overcome with grief over a painful incident just weeks before you arrived. I have watched many movies in my lifetime that I expected too much of our first meeting but It was not what I had imagined it would be. There was no sappy music in the background, no happy tears. Just me seeing you for the first time, a stranger whom I was supposed to have known for months.

There was a glass wall that separated us and holding you was impossible.

I have never seen someone so beautiful, you were sleeping peacefully unmindful of the turmoil of life outside the walls of the neo-natal unit.

I wondered right there and then of my ability to raise you, and care for you. Not with my condition, not with all the pent-up hurt and emotion towards the person who should have been there with me smiling, staring at you in wonder and dreaming about a future with us, his family.

Don’t be angry at me for that moment of weakness. I should have been elated at your presence, I should have glowed with pride at your coming, but I was confused, weary and disoriented. Please forgive me If the pain I have endured have somehow crossed over to you. Please forgive me if you have suffered with me and felt the chasm as much as I did.

Many people would remind me to give up the hurt for your sake, to spare you from whatever emptiness I was supposed to feel. But I could not do it. I could not stop myself from drowning in misery even as you were being pulled away from my womb, even as I looked at you for the first time. I was to miserable that I could not have protected you even if I tried. My heart was broken into a hundred different pieces and was not even sure it could be whole again.

I saw you open your eyes and looked at me. But it was already time and viewing hours were over. The blinds on the big glass wall were being drawn, separating us, making me wait for an eternity until they let me see you again.

It has been over a year since then. I am still hurting but not like before. It will still take a while to be one hundred percent free from feeling any hurt at all, but I’m getting there with a new love, new inspiration--You.

I marvelled at how you, the tiny creature who squirmed in my arms the first time I tried to hold her, have changed my life. I have come a long way from the hesitant, new mother I was when I first saw you.

It was not love at first sight for both of us. Perhaps, It was something else. Something more powerful than love and miracle put-together.

I look at you and your eyes are bright with wonder, your little hands tugging mine. I can hear your laughter as you ran around the room bursting with life and innocence. And I felt pride in the way you walk, joy in the way you smile, and love in the way no one else has ever made me feel.