Dear Beatrice,
I named you after my mother because I wanted you to know that you will always be special to me. That is no news to you but I love to take every opportunity to remind you because I do not want you to ever forget that.
Talking about seizing opportunities, let me again seize this opportunity to tell you that I am very proud of you. You make me so proud. I have watched you grow into this elegant, self-assured, beautiful and accomplished woman that you have become. You have accomplished more in your life than any other woman in our entire family and for that ayekoo. But I would still have been very proud of you even without any of these accomplishments.
You know why? Because I know the secret of life and the secret is this: human beings are meant to be, not to do. We are human beings and not human doings. The biggest responsibility of any human being is to be, to live fully and enjoy the gift of life as much as he/she can. And so, as long as you wake up every day, excited to be alive and committed to making the most of the day, you have succeeded and you have honored God.
Now, Beatrice, I am writing you this letter because of what the doctor said to you yesterday. The doctor said you have fibroid and that you should hurry up and have children or the situation might get worse and might result in the removal of your womb. And I know that this has hit you very badly and left you devastated. Well, my girl, pick yourself up. You have already overcome worse.
You know your mother and I have a great marriage but the first time we really fought, was over you. She was putting pressure on you to get married and I had to stop her from doing that. I said to her, not too nicely, I must confess, but I said to her, “If you want her to get married so badly, then show her a shop where she can go and buy a husband and I guarantee you that our Beatrice can go in there and buy two.”
Of course, your mother did not like that but anyone who puts you down or undermines your confidence and questions your completeness as a woman, cannot expect me to be nice to her. It is as simple as that.
How can anyone, your mother included, think that they can be more concerned about your situation and circumstances than you yourself?
My dear Beatrice, listen. In life, we don’t always get what we want; life does not always go according to plan and life is not fair but that does not matter. What matters is that we find the grace and the courage to live, not the life we want, but the life we are given to live.
I still remember how when you were in secondary school, you had your life fully planned. You said to me, “Dad, I will be holding a master’s degree and be married by twenty-five and then I will have my two sets of twins by the time I hit thirty and then from that time on, I will be ready to take on the world.”
Well, by twenty-five, you had your master’s degree but the husband had not come. And by your thirties, although you did not have your twins, you were making waves in your career and making a difference in the world. You had indeed taken on the world and you were winning. You have not had the life you planned but by God’s grace, you have had a great life and continue to make that life even greater.
Listen my girl, the times have changed and you should not waste your time with those who refuse to change with the times. There was a time when women were regarded as nothing more than breeders. Those were the times when the accepted wisdom was that the woman’s place was in the kitchen and in the home, feeding and taking care of her brood. Today, women like you have shattered that expectation.
Today, women have shown that they can have it all; they can be wives, mothers and still take their place in the board room. Women can have it all and juggle it all. But women need to come to another realization and it is this: if a woman cannot have it all, at least let her make the most of what she already has – her beauty, her awesomeness as a woman, her intelligence; her resourcefulness and her potential for making a huge impact on society. Let the woman who has not been given marriage and children, still rock what she has because you see, a woman is complete with or without a husband and children.
You, Beatrice, are complete as a woman with or without a husband. But you have a choice to make. You have to decide whether what matters the most to you is to be a breeder, as society expects of you or to be an independent woman who knows that you are complete with or without children, a woman who measures her value in the difference she makes in life and in her career and in her community.
You and I are aware of ladies who found themselves in your situation and allowed it to influence the choices they made for their lives. They allowed themselves to get pregnant just to fulfil the expectations of society of them. And we know how much, with the benefit of hindsight, most of them regret compromising their values. I pray that you don’t go that way.
Right now, it may appear to you that being unmarried and childless is the worst thing that can happen to you but trust me, there are worse things that can happen in life even if you are married and with children. Please live the life you have been given to life, not the one you wanted to live. And make the most of the life you have been given to live.
You are not married and you weep that you are not; I know women who are married and they weep that they are. You do not have children and you are sad; I know women who have children and they are sad because they do have children. Life is not about chasing what others have and what you do not have; life is about making the most of your situation no matter how unusual that situation is.
So, my dear daughter, look your best today and don’t let what you do not have rob you of the joy of what you have.
Stay bless and stay safe, my girl.
From daddy.