I know this apartment where this photo is taken but I don’t remember what was so significant about the day or who took the photo, but I suspect it must have been taken by my husband at the time, my son’s father.

Why I am bathing Jaja, who was s chubby, happy baby in the kitchen sink, in that basin that is clearly too small for him I don’t know. I suspect his sister, Shola, might have been enjoying a bubble bath in the bathroom and he was still too young to join her. Or maybe I was in the kitchen and he had just finished eating and food was all over him or maybe…what?  He loved the water and he loved being naked. I just thought it was a good idea, a spur of the moment decision without agenda, hence the photo.

 I see me looking down at him with a smile, but his gazed is fixed elsewhere.  What has caught his eyes? A tree through the window?  A bird perched? The glare of the sun? His dream of what he wants to become?

When we have children we are stitching the fabric for dreams.  If we are lucky, and do parenting right, with as minimum of damage as possible, that fabric could become a star for whom we take credit and applaud ourselves.  Jawara, peaceful warrior, has grown into the meaning of his name, has become a star that shines, has become a man whose gaze is always moving him into tomorrow.  Asé!