My Little Star

Little angel
lying on Daddy’s chest.
She can’t sleep—
Daddy doesn’t know why.
So he decides to sing:

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are...

Baby closes her eyes, then smiles.
Two hearts,
one resting on top of the other—
created by a love called fatherhood.

Daddy can’t resist this fragile beauty.
So he gently kisses
his baby’s head.

One hair
slips into his mouth.
He kisses her again
just to move it away.

He keeps checking.
“I hope she’s breathing,” he says,
his hand covering
the tiny body—

the same hand
that made my baby
sleep forever,
seven years ago.

I lay on my son’s body.
His heart
wasn’t responding to mine.

I screamed so loud—

Open your eyes, Karim!
It’s Mum!

I begged.

But he
was already
above the sky.

My baby.
My little star.

I kissed his face
again,
and again.

But no—
he wasn’t breathing.
He wasn’t responding.

One hair
from his beard
slipped into my mouth.

My baby refused to shave.

“I’m a handsome man, Mum,”
he said
on his last day.

Of course you are,
my baby boy.

Of course you are.