On the young mother?s face, I saw a hint of weariness, but there was also that radiant relief, that joy which glows on a young mother?s face.

You may say, well, how did I see all this in a split second while driving a motor vehicle. I saw more, in fact. I realized that they were poor, because if he had had any money, he would have taken his lady and baby home in a taxi. I saw every young couple starting life and dreaming dreams. I saw Mary and Joseph and Jesus.

I experienced a wrenching, soulful feeling in my heart, and I wanted to circle the roundabout and catch them maybe as they were crossing the pedestrian walk by Atlantic Bank. I wanted to stop them and say to the young couple: I feel your feeling, and I want you to know that if you ever struggle, knock on my door and I will open for you.

But they were total strangers to me, and perhaps they would have thought me mad. To stop them out of the blue, it would have taken too long to explain. I continued on my way home, and the moment was lost.

Despite what Belizeans in the oligarchical sector of our society may think, I am not a sentimentalist. At least, I do not consider myself as such. My people are sea people, and at an early age I saw the daily and murderous fights among the fishes in the sea. From childhood, I recognized life to be competition and conflict, and I still do so recognize. Later in this essay, you will understand why I make this point.

When we were growing up in the 1950?s and 1960?s, Belize was a macho place in many respects. We young men did not participate intimately in the experiences of pregnancy, child bearing and child rearing, as many of our young men do today. If we did deliver our ladies to the old Belize City Hospital to have the baby back then, we quickly departed and waited from afar to hear the news. That was our culture. Older women took care of young mothers.

Today, as a middle-aged man, I have learned a lot about women in their capacity as mothers. I was so ignorant as a young man. Women were all lovers then. The miracle of motherhood was a miracle from a distance, so to speak.

I remember when my first child was born, in November of 1969. I had been unemployed for six, seven months, caught up in what I believed to be a revolutionary process. While I thought I was a revolutionary, I also wanted to become a father. Very often, there is a contradiction there. In other words, often you can not be a revolutionary and a father at the same time.

My wife experienced ?false labor? with our first child. They let her out of the old Belize City Hospital after a while, and she went home to her mother. After two or three days, my father-in-law had my wife admitted to McCleary?s Hospital, where she gave birth to Tifara. (For you younger folk, McCleary?s was exactly where the Chateau Caribbean is now located.)

I never thanked my father-in-law for taking money out of his pocket to provide private hospital comforts for Mrs. Hyde. It was a great move.

You know Joseph, the carpenter, must have felt like a piece of you know what when he had to take Mary to a stable amongst animals to give birth. Same way I think my boy on that Saturday morning must have wished he could have hired a taxi for mother and babe.

The problem I have with the soft porn on television channels like BET is that they depict women exclusively as objects of desire and lust. Women never get pregnant or breast-feed on BET. Now in this modern world, it seems to me that there are a lot of women who are saying their primary role is not to have children. I thought God made women the way He did, for precisely that purpose. But I try not to get into arguments with women. You can?t win.

Women have actually said to me that they should be able to walk naked on the streets, and no man has a right to touch. Personally, I think such a woman would be asking for trouble, but I mention that to underline the previous point, which is that, in the modern world you can?t argue with women, even though a lot of what they say is a crock of you know what.

I wish, with all my heart, that young couples blessed with babies, could be as happy as could be. But life is so rough, the reality threatens that that same snapshot young couple I saw that Saturday morning, could be tearing at each other?s throats in a few months. Poverty is a nightmare.

That is why I say that I am not a sentimentalist. I am a realist. Christmas is a time of sentiment. It?s all about the Babe in the manger. They almost never tell us that right after that birth, Joseph had to grab up Mary and Jesus, and they fled for their lives into Egypt. One Saturday morning four or five weeks ago, I saw Joseph and Mary and Jesus. I guess Egypt is somewhere on the Southside.

Because we have love, that is why we fight. All power to the people.