Rich in Her Love
I dreamt of you, Mother, peaceful once more,
your soft voice drifting through heaven’s door.
No hospital walls, no suffering breath,
just you untouched by sickness or death.
Then morning arrived, cold, empty, and gray,
and once again, you were taken away.
Covid stole you cruelly, sudden and fast,
no final embrace, no moment to last.
No chance to thank you for all you had done,
for fighting through darkness to raise your young one.
You carried such burdens yet still wore a smile,
hiding your heartbreak from me all the while.
We lived in dark rooms where winter crept through,
with cupboards half-empty and bills long overdue.
But somehow you turned all our sorrow to light,
making games out of hunger on cold, sleepless nights.
Aunt put us on taxis from JHB down,
to KZN roads through strange little towns.
Not out of love, not because she cared,
but because keeping us was more than she’d bear.
Yet you smiled at me softly and called it “holiday,”
trying to shield me from pain in your way.
But children can feel what adults try to hide,
I saw silent storms living deep in your eyes.
At night you would stare at the dark without sound,
while I lay pretending my sleep was still found.
Your mind fought battles I could not yet see,
yet somehow you still kept on fighting for me.
Then Des came to fetch you, and I broke apart,
I still hear the panic that tore through my heart.
I ran behind that car with tears on my face,
terrified love had been taken away.
I hated him then for the years that would pass,
for changing the life that I knew could not last.
Because children see absence much more than they see
the sacrifices love makes quietly.
You married for survival, not fairytale dreams,
to build us a future beyond broken seams.
While I stayed in JHB trying to cope,
you carried our future on fragments of hope.
A cottage so tiny, one mattress, cold floor,
months after you left, I walked through that door.
At last we were together, yet nothing felt right,
because I had learned how to sleep without light.
You lay there with Des while I stared up above,
too young to explain how I ached for your love.
No hunger, no poverty wounded me more
than losing the place I had slept safe before.
I missed how you held me so close in the dark,
your breathing beside me, your hand on my heart.
I missed being wrapped in the warmth that I knew,
before life built a distance between me and you.
I thought love meant staying beside me always,
not leaving to struggle through difficult days.
But now that I’m older, I finally see,
you were giving your whole shattered self just for me.
Though your mind was exhausted and heavy with pain,
you still found the strength to love through the strain.
We were poor in the eyes of the world passing by,
with worn-out clothes and unanswered cries.
But riches aren’t counted by gold kept above
the richest of riches was growing in love.
You made me feel worthy when life made me small,
you lifted me up every time I would fall.
And though death may have taken your body from me,
your love still remains in all that I’ll be.
So let the world chase what can fade overnight,
money and status and glittering lights.
I was raised by a woman with nothing to prove,
who gave me a kingdom built purely from love
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