My thumb hovers over the delete icon. Google Photos says the video was taken four years ago today. Back then, I recorded every miraculous thing my baby did. At nine months, she looked at me/the camera, rounded tiny lips, and enunciated, “Mornin’.” I didn’t record her syllables degrading to gibberish over the months that followed. This clip of the one intelligible word she’s ever said is not even ten seconds long. It’s a spectre. Perhaps, I should delete the video/memory and accept reality. But once again I watch it, breathe, and tell myself, I’ll hear her speak again.
Susanna Blagrove is a Jamaican writer and poet. She loves reading, writing, and going to the river/beach with her family, to read and write.