But a bright red dress.
She told me:
“I’ve worn black my entire life so people wouldn’t notice me. Maybe it’s finally time to start living.”
Two months later, our daughter was born.
We named her Hope.
When I held her in my arms for the first time, I couldn’t stop crying.
Shewas so tiny, so vulnerable.
I looked at her little face and thought about how difficult it could be to grow up as a girl in a world where everyone seemed to believe they had the right to decide what you should look like.
Michael came over to us.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
I smiled.
“That Iwant our daughter never to feel ashamed of the person she sees in the mirror.”
A few weeks later, my mother-in-law came to visit us.
She was wearing her newred dress.
For the first time in her life, she wasn’t wearing the oversized jacket she had always used to hide her body.
