My Mother is a little lady - Neo Mokgopa

Beautiful piece. I think all deserving mothers should have the opportunity to read how grateful their children are to them.

"My mother is a little lady..

She has 3 children she named Olwethu, Ofentse and Neo, translated to Our love, our victor, our gift.
I am one of them.

My mother was born at a time when pigeons were higher on the food chain, blood and fists were real threats, she was born on a conveyer belt that churns out ghosts from human beings my mother survived an entire holocaust at home.

My mother's skin, is the colour of twilight clouds: musky yellow tinted along brown and her cheeks are littered with little black starry freckles. My mother's heart was what Jesus came for the first time around, but she wasn't there, so he promised to return at a time when she was breathing.
 
My mother's love was what Shakespeare strived to illustrate but just couldn't pronounce her name right: Toniah, Mokgaetji Mirriam Mokgopa. My mother's name is God's first sonnet, whispered, not shouted, never shouted.

My mother was always reluctant to smack me as a child, so she let me build mudcakes in the rain, my mother's palms are the warm sweet center of freshly baked muffins. She opened them and rubbed my back with them just because I couldn't sleep sometimes. She let them get course so I could have clean clothes to wear. She raised me on their principle.

My mother gave live birth to me. Sweating, at 21 years old, biting and clenching, forcing, trying, bleeding and screaming to have me, and when she saw me, she called me a gift from her God.

My mother is a little lady, just over a meter tall with hips I tugged on for attention, hands I adored, and a voice I dream my daughter to inherit."



☺