THE INSCRIPTIONS ON MY HEART

I have searched far and wide to find her the ideal gift for her birthday. I have combed my thoughts, my bank account and twenty five gift stores in Accra but have come up with nothing.

At $345.00, an iPod is a luxury I cannot afford to give her right this moment. At a size 41, it will take a cobbler with some skill to get her the Cinderella Shoes I want to see on her feet in less than 10 hours when she turns 23 and with both of us trying to shed some weight, a cake lavishly garnished with creaming icing is not a healthy suggestion.

Oh! Yeah! You can never go wrong with perfume. Burberry, Fendi, Elizabeth Arden? Been there, done that and I don’t want to repeat myself.

So what does a broke brother who wishes to express how much his lady means to him on her Birthday do?

As I rummaged through Accra’s most popular shopping mall, I came across a pendant with the inscriptions “in my heart”. A really lovely pendant but at GH¢8.00 that was a really cheap way to say “I love you but I have no money at the moment”.

Hmm… I guess it was on to the next one.

So at 7.30 pm just 4.5 hours to the day she holds so cherish in the year, I begin to think that am I going to call her and just wish her a Happy Birthday sincerely from the bottom of my heart?

MY HEART….

I then remembered the pendant, in my heart. Wow! How dumb could I be? I have searched virtually everywhere for the Ideal gift but I have failed to look at the one place Google search results fail to report when you want to give your lady the best gift in the world. So I took a pen and paper and began to pour out my heart.

Dear Akua,

Words are a limit to the description of the abundance of love that flows like a fountain from the deepest springs of my heart. Like a virus, you tore down all my defences and wormed your way into the one place no one has ever been.

Now you hold the key not to only to my heart but to the very essence of my life and the reason to live it. You mean the world to me and that is literally.

I may not have the credit worthiness to buy you a Range Rover I believe you will look so gorgeous in, or the funds to get you the newest blackberry on which to hear your sweet voice daily. I may lack the capacity to mould you the prettiest platinum ring or the white golden bracelet I saw years ago at Hatton Garden.
But Sweetheart, I will love you endlessly. I will love you like no other.

I love your smile, I love your eyes and I even love your ridiculously large feet (I am sorry I wouldn’t mention it again). Baby, at 5ft 5 with dimples, you are definitely potential wife credentials.

I may be worth very little right now but I have got youth on my side and with the drive that I possess, the Sky is our limit. You will surely be treated like the Queen you are.

Yeah! It’s the cheapest way to say Happy Birthday but it is the sweetest way I know how.

HAPPY 23rd BIRTHDAY

With All My love,
Mr. Page

IT WAS ALL A DREAM

She was everything I had ever wanted in a woman and as I gazed at her from behind the thick glass that separated us, I could feel it in the very fabric of my existence that my life finally had a meaning.

She weighed in at 6 pounds 2 ounces at least that was what was inscribed on the paper fastened to her cot in the nursery and though I was yet to put a finger on who she took after with her great looks, I was certain her smile and dimples mimicked that of her mother.

“Mr. Page, you may see your baby now” hissed a very young looking nurse. God! Those were the words I was dying to hear all day.

I was not there 2000 years ago when baby Jesus was born but I could bet you my baby was prettier. There she lay peacefully wrapped up in white cotton and if I had never known love in all my lifetime prior to this moment, the four letter word just found me.

With her bald head and toothless smile, she was the cutest thing on earth. I leaned closer to my new born baby and that is when it dawned on me.

At 24 and barely 2 years out of college I was a father. All I had was an old jalopy probably valued at GH¢2,500.00, a very old Dell personal computer, a salary worth not talking about and a savings account that only read three figures.

Yeah! I was one broke brother but I was a broke brother rich with a bundle of love. Though I had nothing, I knew my little one would have it all. I was going to be the world’s greatest father.

I was going to be there when she said her first word, “Mama or Papa” it really didn’t matter as long as I was there. I was going to be there when she took her first step, “one, two or three steps” it really didn’t matter as long as I caught her when she fell.

I was going to be the first man she will ever kiss, on the lips or on the cheeks; it really didn’t matter as long as I kissed her first. I was going to drop her off and pick her up from school, in my old jalopy or in Range Rover; it really didn’t matter as long as she received the best education.

When she cried and came home because she had hit 16 and had some punk hand her her first broken heart, it was my shoulder she will cry on and I will tell her “You see that flower in the garden, love is like that flower and like all plants you must first find a suitable soil before you surrender your seedlings into it. Like all flowers love needs to be nurtured, love needs to be tendered and love must be given the opportunity to grow. When all these factors are met, then you will see that tiny bud blossom into that beautiful rose you see right there”.

My little one was going to be smart, she was going to be loved, she was going to be the best thing to Grace the shores of Ghana and I was going to be the proud father.

As I grabbed my beautiful baby I was suddenly overcome by intense guilt. That was when the strangest thing in the world occurred. The clean white cotton that draped my baby girl began to get soaked with blood. The dimples that covered her face had vanished; there were no eye balls in her eye sockets. In fact, there was no face at all. My cute little girl had become a mass of blood clots. Was I hallucinating or was this real.

Suddenly I could hear no sound, everything around me was appearing to be double or triple in shape. I slumped to the ground and as I gaze at the green colored ceiling of the nursery, the green began to fuse into the white ceiling of my bedroom.

I flipped open my eyes and realized it was all a dream.