And I couldn't stop.

Two years ago we had a grand daughter  our life was to change, again, forever.

I am completely and utterly in love.

A kind of love that I was completely unprepared for.

When they brought her to the viewing glass when she was born, I burst into tears.
And couldn't stop crying.

I remember a black couple saying in Zulu (they didn't realise I understood),
"He must have just found out that there is something wrong with the baby".

I have only ever really cried a few times in my adult life.

After I put my baby brother into the earth, and when  I had taken care of all the arrangements around his funeral.
I had to be the strong one,  for my parents, and for everyone.

When I actually laid him into the earth,  it came, and I couldn't stop.

Half a decade later standing at the Mosque, while meeting the well wishers at my daughters wedding.

All of a sudden, and for no reason that I could see at the time, it washed over me and I cried.

And all the embarrassed in-laws tried to console me and tell me that she would be fine and that she would be happy, but there was no logic to it. 
And I couldn't stop crying.

And finally at the hospital when I saw Hawa for the first time.

Its not that I was happy in some of these instances or that I was so sad that I cried. I actually don't remember these times in those terms at all. Yes I was so happy that I cried and I was so sad that I cried but to be honest it was entirely something else, some new emotion that defies the labels.
It defied all the descriptions and comparisons with anything that has ever been.

I cried and thats all I have to say about that.
And I couldn't stop.

M Parak. 

2015