Ma

She use to let me lie with my head on her chest, I loved to hear her heart beat and the strange muffled sounds her words made when she spoke. I knew she loved me, I just knew she did. She must have always been part of me, in lives gone by. She woke me up, gave me breakfast, walked me to crèche and collected me after. Her breathe was musky and sweet and she smelled like stok kaneel (cinnamon sticks). Her clothes always seemed too thin, must be why she layered it. When she hung up her underwear she would choose the spot furthest from the window. I would sneak around to have a little peak and instinctively felt as though I was trespassing.

Her cupboard was neatly packed, jersey’s with jerseys, aprons with aprons and dresses hanging from big to small. She did not smoke and only drank around Christmas time and then only brandy and adult ginger beer. That’s what they told me it was anyway.

Ginger beer bottles would burst from time to time during the Christmas holidays and that time of the year the house smelled like oil based paint (light blue), cookie dough and ginger beer. She had a crush on Mr Wilkinson, the collector (insurance or something), I knew because she would always take the apron off and swear at her hair in the mirror. One day, overnight, she was grey. She stopped dyeing her hair and it just went grey like that. When I was taken to live with my mom and step dad I missed her so much I cried myself to sleep. My hello and goodbye kisses covered her whole face until she would hit me off her. Stop you it you bleady fool. Lol! I would buy her whole nut chocolate just to watch her suck the chocolate, complain about not being able to eat the bleady nuts then pop them out her mouth to give to me. Still smile when I see that chocolate.

Sometimes when I was liss to be naughty I would call her number and just hold onto the phone, as her anger escalated her words became more colourful. Gaan speel met die fokken hoenders, As ek jou in the hande kry gaan ek jou so hart klap die snot gaan a bou tie om jou nek maak. Jou fokkien rubbish! Lol. I slam the phone down when I could hold my laughter no more. The best was when she and my grandpa had a fight. They would not speak a word to each other but his food and tea was on time. They would fight about her meddling in the kids affairs and dogs and burglar bars.

She would sit in her room and stare out the window. I asked her once what she was thinking about, and one day she told me.

She remembered when she was a little girl and had to collect woods in the forest (can you believe it) for fire. She fell asleep though and woke up in the middle of the night and realised she was lying on an unmarked grave. She ran home fast as her legs could carry and then for months was plagued by a vision. A man, old, standing in the forest beckoning her to him. Her mom had to get someone to pray for my ma (exorcism ritual) and the old man disappeared. She had lots of stories like that about cats that cried like babies and snakes that spoke. My grandma. Her husband Jimmy was the complete opposite. Quiet, deep thinking, imagine my surprise one day when he blurted out that if that Sammy from Days of our Lives were to ever grace our shores she would be sent home in a body bag.

When I heard she had cancer I was inconsolable. I drove her to hospital every week and even was allowed in after hours. I would read to her and tell her about my stuff. She told me more stuff, she was abused by her uncle. Her first born was another man’s child. I took her to the cinema at Cavendish and she fell asleep, I stared at her silhouette in the darkened cinema and could burst for the love I felt. She refused to get into my Spitfire, my pantie gaan afskeur she howled, trek die pentie uit, I joked back. She called me to tell me my dad had passed but no one wanted to call me to tell me that she had passed. …

The flight from London was long. The flight from JHB was longer.

Her body was cold and stiff and he skin hard and grey. Lifeless surrounded by cotton wool smelling foreign, there lay Dolly Ward. My ma and the only woman who could crush me at the thought of disappointing her. My external conscience, my beacon, the woman who baked a chocolate cake for my birthday every single year. Even when I was not in the country. We knew she was getting old when she substituted the sugar for salt. She was cremated. They all cried. All her kids and her husband. Then I stopped crying suddenly, no more tears, rather a hollow ache, a dull pain that stayed with me for months and

is

there

still.

I hate to end this blog so sad so I will tell you a joke. She thought this was hilarious. What is green and smells like a pig? Kermit the frog’s middle finger!