In less than three weeks, my daughter is going off to university.
The feelings and sensations are amazing and extremely overwhelming at times. This is a person I have known as a thought first, then as little flutter. Every steps seems to be guided by my decision to invite this child into my life, although of one thing leading to another there was never a guarantee.
I remember falling in love with the name first and the idea of having a daughter in 1988 long years before I even had a father in mind! That's all it boiled down to in the end I suppose: the courtship as we socially know it, is then perhaps just a mating dance to pick the right DNA. Candid? That's what I'm thinking right now!
And now it is time to sit back and wonder about who this child is and what she takes with her into the world. What she has inside of herself as experiences, desires and aspirations and a unique quality of seeing the world with her own eyes.
Simple tasks such as bringing out her passport and health card and leaving them for her to pack, buying a toilet brush for her to take with her and helping her do laundry or use her ATM card are as poignant as teaching her to walk. Because this is what it is: I am teaching my daughter to walk into the world, knowing some things, not knowing others. I am also teaching myself to walk in mine.
And as my vision blurs, I am aware that she has what it takes to create her own destiny with the tiny hands that had one tapped me from the inside. She is still here, in every fiber of my being.
My daughter, my friend, my Guru.
Khudha hafiz.
I remember falling in love with the name first and the idea of having a daughter in 1988 long years before I even had a father in mind! That's all it boiled down to in the end I suppose: the courtship as we socially know it, is then perhaps just a mating dance to pick the right DNA. Candid? That's what I'm thinking right now!
And now it is time to sit back and wonder about who this child is and what she takes with her into the world. What she has inside of herself as experiences, desires and aspirations and a unique quality of seeing the world with her own eyes.
Simple tasks such as bringing out her passport and health card and leaving them for her to pack, buying a toilet brush for her to take with her and helping her do laundry or use her ATM card are as poignant as teaching her to walk. Because this is what it is: I am teaching my daughter to walk into the world, knowing some things, not knowing others. I am also teaching myself to walk in mine.
And as my vision blurs, I am aware that she has what it takes to create her own destiny with the tiny hands that had one tapped me from the inside. She is still here, in every fiber of my being.
My daughter, my friend, my Guru.
Khudha hafiz.
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