My girls will never know my father. They'll never hear him make up the words to "I Feel Pretty." They'll never catch him sneaking thirds of Blue Bell's pralines and cream ice cream late at night. He'll never send them off to school quoting the Village Schoolmaster by Oliver Goldsmith... "And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew that one small head could carry all he knew."
Going through PPD has been tremendously challenging. As has been raising a newborn. Doing it without my village makes those challenges feel overwhelmingly impossible.
When you had a blowout diaper while we were on the go and I had to not only change you in the car but I also only had two wipes to use? And didn't have a clean outfit in your size to put you in so your 7-month-old self wore your sister's 2T pants and went topless for our ride home? That was me winging the whole "multiple kid" thing.
"In her expression, I see the Black mothers who are unseen, and rendered helpless in this fury against their babies," Kaphar writes in a piece accompanying his painting.
