My baby grew up without me.

After she was born, a woman lifted her from my weary arms, and she screeched as she left her mother and gained another. She will never know.

I met her five years later. She was beautiful, with her sun-golden locks, her dazzling smile. I knew from her words she would be brilliant and hoped that she would be smarter than her first mommy.

And she had the biggest heart I’d ever seen. And I prayed that her heart would never break, oh, I prayed that it would harden.

I met her again when she was ten. Her hair flowed like sunflower silk and her smile could charm any soul; her brain was quick like light. But her shattered heart was in her eyes, and she did not want it.

I saw her yesterday. She’s grown up, and is more radiant than the goddesses. The world knows now her intelligence.

Her heart is hard as a diamond and just as transparent, and belongs to a man who could afford it.

She has her hair, she wears her smile, and she uses her mind, but she left back her heart.

She is blessed.