LIFE AS IT IS

W hen she sleeps in my lap, I gaze at her. I gaze at her because I still find it hard to believe that I carried her for nine months. I touch her soft hair, her tiny fingers and toes, I pull her little round nose, I squeeze her cheeks and gently massage her arms. No, nothing wakes her up. She squirms for a few seconds but does not become fully awake. She perhaps knows that she is in a place that is as safe as it can be. The pain was harrowing, nothing I ever felt before. The twenty-three hours of labour seemed like twenty-three days of suffering. Her back was against my back when her back should have been against my belly. The result? Back-breaking labour. Yes, I had back labour, which is far more painful that normal labour. I thought I would pass out. A few times I thought I would die giving birth to my daughter. In spite of everything it was the first time in my life I thought I was strong. I always had an idea that I was physically weak but the birth of Wareesha just blew that idea a...

What happens when your toddler mistakes your wall for a canvas? You have very unique works of art all over the house. Not only unique, these artworks are abstract and priceless, too. But no matter how unique they may be, you don’t want them hanging from the walls of your house!  On one morning of June 2015, my daughter took my kitchen and living room walls for canvases. When I caught her, she was already done drawing on three walls and wrapping up her artwork on the fourth. She drew with a pen in one hand and a pencil in another for greater speed and coverage. An ambidextrous person in the making? Perhaps.  Her drawings, which resembled the humps and waves you see on an ECG (electrocardiograph) report, made me act like a mad woman. I was so angry that I cried. Being someone who is fastidious about cleanliness, this incident was similar to someone pouring buckets of black tar on white walls. I knew I had to find a way to remove these medical reports from the walls, my...

There are days when I wish I had nothing to do. A day when I will not have to leave my bed after my daughter wakes up at 6:30 a.m. in the morning. A day when I will not have to read aloud for half-hour to feed her just 8 spoonfuls of oatmeal. A day when I will not have to run after her after she poops and refuses to let me change her diaper. A day when I will not have to pretend to be a singer in order to make her go to sleep. On some days, I do not even feel like washing the dishes after a meal or preparing a lunch for myself. On those days, I just want to spend time with myself, and no one else. We have too many days in our lives when we push ourselves to do things that we do not feel like doing at that moment. On some mornings, our tired bodies and minds (even though we just woke up from an 8-hour night sleep) tell us to skip work. But we cannot do that, because if we did that then there would not be any money to pay rent, buy food and health insurance. I don't have to worry...