There are nights when I lie still on my bed, my eyes fixed on the ceiling as if the roof might dissolve and give way to the sky, and I find myself wondering whether the angels above can feel the weight of my soul reaching toward them — whether Mama, Papa, Grand-mère, Luna, and my brother John can see the way my heart trembles when I whisper their names into the quiet and ask them to steady me for what I must now do.
I did not begin writing these blogs because I am imprisoned by the past. I began writing because loss has become a language I speak fluently, and if I do not give it words, it settles into my body like unspoken smoke. Grief does not disappear with time; it transforms. It becomes layered, textured, sometimes sharp enough to cut and sometimes soft enough to cradle, but always tethered to love.
Today, as I prepare to return to Africa to lay my daughter to rest, I understand that this story is not only about losing her. It is about honoring her. It is about telling the truth of who she was — and who she became in my life long before I ever knew how deeply she would save me.
Nine years ago, while working at an orphanage in Senegal, I met a two-month-old premature baby girl whose life had already been marked by devastating loss. Her mother died giving birth to her. Her father was killed while her mother was still pregnant. Before she ever formed language, before she ever learned to grip a finger with strength, the world had already taken from her what every child deserves.
She was impossibly small — so small that holding her felt like holding breath itself. Her body was fragile. Her lungs fought. Her heart struggled. And as the years passed, I watched other children get adopted, celebrated, and carried away into new homes while she remained — the quiet child with too many medical complications, too many risks, too many uncertainties for families to feel safe choosing her.
She became known as the girl nobody wanted.
And yet every time I looked at her, something inside of me stirred with a recognition that felt almost ancestral.
I was born three months premature. I spent the earliest chapters of my life in hospital rooms filled with sterile light and steady beeping machines that measured whether I would make it through another night. But I had something she did not have — I had parents who sacrificed everything to keep me alive. I had a mother and father who chose me daily, fiercely, without hesitation, despite the fear, despite the cost.
When I looked at her, I saw what my life might have been without that kind of protection. And something inside me refused to let her story end in quiet abandonment.
What began as sponsorship slowly became relationship. We spoke monthly through video calls. I watched her grow into her features, into her stubbornness, into her humor. I watched her spirit outpace her fragile body. She had a brightness about her that defied medical charts and cautious language. She carried resilience in her small frame like it was instinctive.
And though she did not know it, she was saving me.
Nine years ago, I was still navigating the aftermath of profound grief. I was learning how to exist in a world that had taken my parents, my brother, my best friend. I was functioning, yes — but often without direction. Purpose felt like something that belonged to another version of me. Joy felt temporary. The future felt unstable.
But loving her began to organize my life around something beyond survival.
I planned my months around our calls. I thought about what she needed before I thought about myself. I began dreaming again — not abstract dreams, but concrete ones: stability for her, healthcare for her, education for her, a future where she would never doubt that she was chosen.
The first time she called me “Mama,” she was five years old.
Her voice was soft but certain. “Mama.”
And in that moment, something inside of me cracked open — not from rejection, but from fear. Because to be called “Mama” meant allowing someone all the way into the sacred center of my heart. It meant risking the kind of attachment that could devastate me if taken away. I had already buried too many people. I had already learned what it costs to love deeply.
I realized that what I felt was not hesitation about her.
It was terror of loss.
And instead of retreating, instead of shrinking back into emotional safety, I did something that surprised even me — I went to her.
After she called me Mama, I traveled to Senegal and spent months by her side. Not as a distant sponsor. Not as a visitor. But as a mother learning her child’s rhythms — the way she slept, the way she squeezed my hand when she was nervous, the way her laughter rose unexpectedly even on difficult days. Those months were filled with hospital visits, long conversations with doctors, quiet afternoons under warm air and spinning fans, and ordinary moments that stitched us together.
In that time, love became embodied.
She was no longer the girl on a screen.
She was my daughter.
Two years ago, I chose to adopt her fully — not only financially, but emotionally and publicly. I claimed her without reservation. I allowed myself to say, “She is mine,” knowing that love without fear is the bravest thing I could offer.
Soon after, her health complications resurfaced with intensity, as though her body had been waiting for security before releasing what it had been carrying. And still, I did not waver.
A month ago, her condition worsened suddenly and required emergency heart surgery. I received the call from the hospital outlining what needed to happen immediately. And in that moment, I faced a reality that felt impossibly cruel — I could not afford both the urgent flight to Senegal and the surgery she needed to survive.
Every instinct in me wanted to get on that plane. To hold her before the operation. To sit outside the operating room doors. But choosing the flight would have delayed the surgery.
So I stayed.
And that decision felt like splitting my heart in half.
I waited by the phone while doctors prepared her small body. I remained thousands of miles away, suspended between prayer and terror, trusting the hands that would operate on her heart.
I feel blessed by the doctor God chose for her. He treated her not as a case file, but as a child deserving of dignity. He kept me informed at every stage of the procedure, explaining each step, each risk, each adjustment, as if he understood that motherhood stretches across oceans.
The day of her surgery, I sat in my office, staring at my computer screen without seeing it. My hands trembled. My breath was shallow. My entire being was in that operating room in Senegal.
When the phone rang and I heard the words, “The surgery went well,” I felt reborn.
It was as if I had been underwater and finally broke through the surface. Relief flooded my body so completely that I had to sit down. I believed we had been given more time. I believed we had outrun the loss.
For two weeks, we lived inside that fragile miracle.
And then, gently and heartbreakingly, her body began to fail again.
The surgery had bought time — but not forever.
Now I am preparing to return to Africa not as a visitor, not as a sponsor, but as a mother planning her daughter’s funeral. I have attended many funerals in my life. I have stood beside grief more times than I can count. But I have never had to organize one for my own child.
As I lie here tonight staring at the ceiling, I ask my angels if I have done well.
Did she know she was chosen?
Did she feel loved without condition?
Did she understand that someone emptied everything — savings, fear, pride — just to give her a chance?
And then I steady myself with the truth.
As I prepare to lay my daughter to rest, I hold onto the meaning of her name — Saphire — a precious stone formed under pressure, made strong by what it survives. She lived exactly that way. Fragile in body, yet steady in spirit. She carried more than most ever should, and still she shined.
She was never the girl nobody wanted. She was my daughter. The child I chose, and would choose again. The one who gave my grieving heart purpose nine years ago when I was still trying to find my way back to myself.
She reminded me that loving again after so much loss is not weakness — it is courage. Her life was not defined by how long she stayed, but by how fiercely she was loved. And though I have to say goodbye sooner than I ever imagined, I know she did not leave this world abandoned.
She left it claimed.
Fought for.
Deeply loved.
And she will forever remain what her name promised — precious, steady, radiant in ways this world could not contain, and always my Saphire. 🤍🕊️🌸✨💙
