Hey Sunshine,

I hope you are as happy and healthy as I always imagined you'd be during those meditations in Italy. When I was told to envision my future, surprisingly, it was always the same mental clip of me sitting down in a field with high grass while the wind was blowing ever so gently as I held a book with my arms outstretched to you. You would come running as fast as your little legs would let you into my arms and plop down in my lap, smiling and laughing with whom I presumed to be your dad and older brother on my side, just as happy. You were such a beautiful vision that changed the way I lived my life. After seeing you, I have spent everyday waiting for you, becoming a better woman for you which will help me be a better mom, hoping that one day that vision will come true.

But while I've been waiting for you, I've realized that the world is not this amazing place that I thought it was, especially not the United States I was blindly taught to love before I knew how to read or how to actually spell my name. Somewhere in it all, people have forgotten how to love one another, especially little boys like you.

Now, I have no clue who your dad is yet, but what I do know is that he loves you and that you are half of me and half of him, which I think is such a beautiful and special thing. But that certain half of me is the half that always concerns me. At the end of the day, when the doctors asks your ethnicity, no matter what your father is, you will be black and that's the first impression you will always have on the world.

My sweet baby, how I worry about a future you don't even have yet.

Lately on the news, there have been a lot of incidents with police brutality, but more importantly, incidents that center around guns and involve people like me and you. No, I'm not talking about smart, funny people who build living room forts while Dad's away on business or have campfires in the backyard and tell ghost stories. Though they probably love it, too, I'm talking about people with a little more melanin in their skin and a little more kink in their curls. Baby, I'm talking about black people like us.

A few years ago, there was one of those incidents that took the world by storm and surprise. There was a teenager named Trayvon Martin who went to a store one February night wearing a hoodie and was shot by a man named George Zimmerman. The true reason of why this young soul was taken is between him, God, and Zimmerman. All that I know is that Trayvon was wearing a hoodie while carrying a tea and some Skittles, things you may do at some point in time. When brought to trial, Zimmerman was set free despite having taken another life in the name of self defense. As time went on, the world began to see more incidents like this involving the unnecessary deaths of police officers, black men, women and sadly, children around our country.

Instead of doing something, most officials have swept it under the rug saying that “black on black” crime is just as bad, which is a myth, while the media has made it into a race war in various ways such as painting white doers of the same crimes as “mentally ill" with a class portrait on every news outlet and not a mugshot like their ethnic counterparts. This supposed war that I and so many others don't want to fight but rather just want fixed with love and understanding has been around a lot longer than anyone who is fighting it. So, to fix centuries of oppression and wrongdoing is going to take a lot more than Kumbaya circles and rants on Facebook … it's going to take infrastructural change and an education that doesn't tell everything in the viewpoint of the winner. I don't expect you to understand all this yet but one day you will.

Sadly, because of the certain half of you that is me, there will be this impression that you are aggressive and scary without you even saying a word or lifting a finger. Every wrong thing you do will be linked to your race and every accomplishment will be attributed to those outside of our racial community. But all I can do is love you unconditionally and educate you about being black is incredible, though people don't always see it.

Hopefully by the time you actually enter this world, this letter would have been for nothing and the modern day martyrs: Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Dontre Hamilton, Eric Garner, John Crawford III, Ezell Ford, Dante Parker, Tanisha Anderson, Akai Gurley, Tamir Rice, Rumain Brisbon, Jerame Reid, Tony Robinson, Phillip White, Eric Harris, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Trooper Joseph Cameron Ponder, Officer Lorne Ahrens, Officer Michael Krol, Officer Michael J. Smith, Officer Brent Thompson, Officer Patrick Zamarripa, Philando Castille and Alton Sterling to name a few of the hundreds if not thousands of lives lost, would not have been for nothing. Never forget their names. When you read about the “#BlackLivesMatter” movement in your history books, know that much like our ancestors who fought for equality and for you to be more than a slave, they too unknowingly paid the ultimate price for you to actually have all those things enlisted to you in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights as the citizen you are.

I pray that by the time you enter this world and decide to play outside, I won't have to worry about officers gunning you down in a drive by or a man doing his “civic duty" by stalking you and blaming you for being the out of control one as you eat Skittles and sip your tea.

Know that there are good people in this world that want you to succeed and hope that you break the mold. Know that there are cops putting their lives on the line everyday to protect you, living up to the promise and oath they took the day they put that badge on. Know that all white people aren’t evil, much like bad cops, they are far and few between. But also know that the world isn't exactly rainbows and unicorns. There are people out there that want you to fail, sometimes those people are the ones that are supposed to have your back no matter what. Know that there are some shitty people out there that only see the color of your skin, and not the sweet boy that your father and I love so dearly. Know that the world might not be ready to love you, but I am and already do.

My sweet baby boy, just know and don't be disappointed by the world I brought you into. Just make it your goal, much like your father’s, aunts’, grandparents’ and I’s, to make it a better place. Your black is incredible and has such a rich history that doesn't start with slavery.

I love you to the moon and back. I hope everything is dope up there in heaven. I'm sending all of my prayers your way I as patiently await your arrival, until then, keep smiling and laughing up there with God and my friends who've made it to the party a little early.

Love,

Your future mom who isn't quite where she needs to be in life for you to come but is waiting patiently for the day, say five years from now, that you do.

P.S. I love you, Sunshine 🌞.