A GIFT OF GOD TO CALL OUR OWN

Our very own Netanya,

This photo here was taken on the 13th of May, 2019 at 9:04 pm. Your mother and I had just checked into our hotel for what was going to be the last holiday we were to take before being parents.

By the time you are able to read this, you will have heard of the year 2020, COVID-19 and perhaps some stories of our former president having referred to every heavily restricted event carried out that time as ‘scientific’. Scientific wedding, scientific elections etc. You may get the sense that this former president was the author and perfecter of all things scientific. Dear daughter, do not be deceived!

Two days before this picture was taken, your father – with help from your very many aunties – had successfully pulled off a ‘scientific’ baby shower. You laugh, but that was no mean feat!

First, I had to get your aunties to agree on a date and venue at which to assemble. You already have an idea of how hard it is to get them to agree to anything so I won’t belabour the point.

Then, once most of them had agreed on this, I had the unenviable task of making sure that your mother didn’t get wind of it. Again, as you have probably figured out by now, your mother is not one of the hardest people to surprise (that title belongs to your Auntie Aggie).

She IS the hardest person to surprise.

She has eyes and ears everywhere. She smells surprises from miles away and will not rest until she has uncovered them (before they are due). And this time, she was pregnant. Which meant she had a heightened sense of smell!

Anyway, because we were in the UK and most of your family was back home in Uganda, I had asked all your aunties to send in video messages via Whatsapp. Each had a maximum of 1 minute, but I stressed that something less would be highly appreciated. But you know your aunties. They couldn’t stop yapping. So what was supposed to be a simple 15min video collage ended up being a collection of messages that were almost one hour long. So I gave up on editing the videos and decided your mother will just have to watch them one by one.

But before that, your mother had to be watched. You see, every now and then, she tends to scroll through my phone gallery. Before you ask, I tend to do the same. Just one of those things that randomly happens when one of us uses the other’s phone to take a picture or if we are showing each other something. So generally, this is not a problem. Except that this time round, I had to keep sending the received videos to an encrypted folder, just so she doesn’t land on them.

For the day itself, I had asked some of your aunties that lived near us to help. The plan was that they take your mother out for shopping midmorning and keep her occupied as I prepared things at home, got the cake and readied the aunties back in Uganda.

As it turned out, your mother decided she wasn’t in the mood for shopping on that day, especially not at that time. No amount of haggling seemed to get her to agree. So they texted me and told me they had failed. I needed to convince my wife that getting up early morning on a Saturday to go shopping for things she didn’t immediately need and could get any other day was a brilliant idea. I prayed before approaching. When I randomly suggested to her that it might be a good idea to take her friends up on the shopping offer, her sense of smell (now heightened, remember?) kicked in.

“Why?”

“Well, I just think this might be the last time you get to do this with friends before the baby comes, so why not?” I responded.

“But we can do it on Sunday after church. Or next weekend. Or one of the five days next week after work. Why do they want it to be done on Saturday specifically?”

“Hey, it’s your call babe. I just think that if they are available and willing, you should go. Besides, you never know, they might be planning to have this a sort of baby shower shopping spree.”

And that, dear child, is how the deal was done.

Your mother will tell you, if she hasn’t already, how the baby shower transpired. As the organiser, my version is likely pretty boring and includes too many side notes and footnotes to make a good story. Suffice to say, your mother came back home with your aunties to a surprise video call from your aunties back in Uganda, with gifts from each of them to her, to you and to me.

And so after the scientific baby shower, I took your mother for our last holiday as just a couple.

We went to a seaside holiday town called Blackpool. We arrived midmorning, were allowed to leave our luggage in the room, even though it wasn’t yet time to check-in and then we headed for the sea. We ate seaside doughnuts and had lunch at Pizza Hut. We ventured into the town and took pictures at the beach. By the time we were getting back to the hotel, we were exhausted. Because the sun didn’t set until about 9:30 pm, we sat by the window of our fourth-floor bedroom and watched as dusk approached. We talked about how surreal it was that we were finally going to have you. Your mother asked what activities I would like to take you to within the first months of your life. We argued about who would be the softie and who you would have your way with the most (at the time of writing this, we still disagree on who it is). We sang some of our favourite hymns and some of our favourite non-hymns. We took photos of your mother looking out to the sunset, with her protruded belly seeming to kiss it. We took photos of me holding her. I sat on the chair that was by the window. She sat on my lap.

I clasped her belly and I talked to you.

You kicked.

We laughed.

You kicked again.

The sun was setting now and darkness began to descend.

But months ago, one of your aunties had started referring to you as Sunshine.

So even as one sun set, I clasped onto another.

Our very own Sunshine.

I held the phone at arm’s length, you and your mum in an embrace, and clicked.

In mummy’s belly, slept a gift of God.

To us.

Netanya.