<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Born in a broke country with a black president</span></p>
<p>First Person:<br>
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By process of elimination, it fell on me to babysit our infant granddaughter. The babysitter was ill, everybody had to work, and Papa Al works at home. I viewed this as a daunting yet sacred trust. I can’t remember when I had full time charge of an infant for an entire day and the responsibility wore heavily on me days before the scheduled “blessed event.” I wasn’t sure I could do it but told everybody I could.</p>
<p> I know about her, was at the hospital when she was born, was one of the first to ever hold her, have randomly bonded with her, and even fed her a bottle on occasion. I have loved her since before the beginning, yet I knew she could sense the fear in me. She knew that she could cry randomly and I would promise her a BMW if she would stop.</p>
<p> She arrived all bundled up in a high tech chair, which morphed from a car seat into a traveling basket of sorts. Mariana was bundled in a precious pastel package, a pink Jordan beanie and those caramel colored innocent eyes, rosy red cheeks, and diamond studded Latina adorned earrings.</p>
<p> After stilted and hurried goodbyes, it was just Mariana, me, and our dog Sally. Oh, I forgot to mention I was also doggie sitting their ten-month-old Maltese puppy named Mugzy.</p>
<p> She sat wide awake in her chair on the sofa in my office and stared me down as I checked my email. She made a few noises and I was ready with her first bottle. Bottles are somehow curved now. They are not glass, like the one my son used to crack me over the head with when I tried to nap back when I had an Afro.</p>
<p> This was the day when the headlines read, “Babies born recently will probably live to be 100 years old.” That’s when it struck me that Mariana will spend the majority of her life without me and I became very sad. In fact I was the one who felt like crying. In lieu of a bottle I drank another mug of hair-straightening Peets coffee.</p>
<p> It was amazing to me that she was born into a world where the president is black and at a time when the country was never more broke. A time when a Latina can sit on the Supreme Court, and you can watch a Mariah Cary concert on your cell phone. We have come a long way baby indeed.</p>
<p> She started to cry and I placed her on my lap to read my Facebook comments. All she wanted to do was to bang her hands on the keyboard and scream, which, ironically, has made me a good living by doing the very same thing.</p>
<p> My comments were so boring it put her to sleep while cradled in my arms. I was about to put her in bed, when Sally and Mugs started barking for no apparent reason. She awoke, quite upset at me for not keeping the dogs quiet. The two white fluffy suspects, quite proud of what they considered to be their security effort, went back to sleep in self congratulatory satisfaction.</p>
<p> Half asleep, half awake, I carried her around the house and the motion calmed her down. I do the same thing on my motorcycle when I go for my wind therapy while enraged about one thing or another. I always forget about what I was mad about after I come back from a ride. I was hoping a few laps around the house would do the same for the little mama, and it did. But then it didn’t.</p>
<p> I clicked on the flat screen and sat beside her as she sipped yet another bottle while I watched HD cartoons. Who writes this stuff anyway? Que Sponge Bob, que nada! I have pitched many TV ideas and was told my ideas about “Little Genius Projects Kids” were off the wall yet the Sponge Bob people are driving Bentleys. Again I felt like crying, but she comforted me by going to sleep, making me feel that at least I succeed in doing something right.</p>
<p> The whole day was spent attending to her every need and/or whim. I did not get any work done at all, yet for me it was one of the more productive days in a long time. I realized that life, the celebration of life, and comforting those you love should be the most important priority. Nurturing her gave me the gift of perspective.</p>
<p> In the afternoon, back in the office, I treated her to musical selections which included John Coltrane, Little Joe y La Famila, Tower of Power, Buena Vista, and Michael Jackson. She loved the Michael Jackson tunes from a time when he became an iconic, almost fairytailed myth.</p>
<p> I promised to be there for her and help set the template of her life. My hope is that she and her kids will someday remember the times spent with her Papa Al – in a time when the world needed heroes.</p>
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