Mama’s love

I’m not sure there’s anything deeper than this love

The kind of forgiving love

The stand-by-your-side-through-thick-and-thin kind of love

The love that can move mountains and hearts all the same

The look of happiness, faith, peace and pride – all in one

A Mama’s love

Runs through my very veins

Keeps my heart beating

Shows light in darkness

This love is unbreakable

Mama’s love is the love that taught me how to love too

I love you a thousand ways and more

I kept waiting for something to happen, something to go wrong so I could get on with it and recover. But nothing ever did. The problems came and went ans we still stood there, wrapped in ever-lasting love for one another. I expected the worst every time - but I was proven wrong all the time. The love remained

and we grew stronger. The bad times came and I felt myself get scared, I felt my heart retreating, I felt you withdraw and I though 'this is it, here's the end' and I waited - but still, nothing came.

For a long time I just imagined my life would be a constant up and down of big loves gained and lost. I always just assumed I was destined to love many - but many were not destined to love me. You kept saying that you would never leave and for a long while I didn't believe you. Time moved along and you stayed.Our hearts and minds played tricks on us and you stayed. I fell apart over and over, wanting more, wishing for more, needing more and steadily you delivered - each time more than the time before.


I felt a alarming sense of fear - because I realised very early that losing you would define many things in my life after you - but it was as though you read my mind and made a promise with your heart and you meant it when you said you would never leave.

And still today I look at us and cannot believe my luck.

What's happened to us can only be defined as a gift. What you've given to me is more than that. You've brought so much to what I thought was so little. You gathered all my tears and fears up in a shovel and buried it alongside your own, trusting me more and teaching me how to trust you. I have never loved the way I love you.

But I will never love the way I will love you tomorrow. And the next day...

To sit down, hold your hands and thank you for every single moment would take an eternity and yet I know that one I start I won't be able to stop. When I think about us and all the mountains we've climbed, the rivers we've swum, the struggles we've have to learn to face together, I wonder how, for so long, I managed so much time on my own, without you.

Thank you for yesterday. Thank you for today. Thank you for tomorrow.

My friend with Aids is still my friend

You look no different

you feel no different

but your pain is masked upon you face like a tattoo only I can see

your disease destroys your ability to hope

I am here, healthy as can be looking at you and trying to see

a way that I can help you unlock your hope again

I can carry your pain

I can be your friend

What is running through your veins is nothing but blood to me

I love you and your disease

I love you no differently

accept and live

live and love

a cure is coming

Aids doesn’t mean stop dreaming

Find a reason to live

More reasons to be sorry than reasons to smile

More letters of regret and words of apology than the existence of a smile

More worrying about what if than relishing in memories we made today

More over-thinking of how tomorrow will become yesterday

Less laughter more tears

Less smiling more years added to the lines in our faces

Too much loathing of one another and ourselves

Not enough Thank You

Too little I love you

No more you are my best friend

The world is ours to do with what we must

Can we forgive and regain trust?

Must we move on can’t we just be those two laughing young ones shaded by glee

More reason to forgive

More options as we grow

Things get better

Life gets harder

Love ends and new love begins

Find a safe haven for your heart and find a reason to live

>>Published in www.iammagazine.co.za on 12 November 2012