My best friend was born on the 13th day of March 2005. One would think that the least the heavens could have done was to send and angel or two to proclaim the arrival of one who was to change my life so profoundly. But no! angels are reserved for babies in mangers, and since mangers are hard to come by, my daughter had to make do with the birth column in the local newspaper heralding her arrival.
But I was only to meet the lady when she was seven months old. Me fresh from honeymoon and she fresh from rehab (at least that’s where her mom had booked herself into).
Ours was a nervous meeting, as my Lady Lissa was not used to human affection. I had been a foster mom for a while and I have had all kinds of wonderful itty bitty beings in my protection before. But there was something so different about this child with her parents’ names.
It wasn’t her unusual colouring due to her mixed masala genes. Her mom is Dutch and her dad was coloured , resulting in the sun kissed skin, red gold hair and the bluest eyes, not to mention a mouth as loud as any 4 year old in the Cape Flats. Her parents were both professors at the local university. Not married, but engaged, deeply in love with their newborn, and with each other, and they couldn’t wait to start a life together. He died in an accident when she was a month old. Nicki was broken and turned to drugs.
Perhaps my first memory of Lissa and I bonding was when she insisted on dropping her toys outta the cot, just so I could pick them up for her. This routine of dropping and pickin up really fascinated her. I’d tell her NO NO NO don’t drop it.
And she’d giggle and as soon as my back was turned she would drop it again. Her first words were NONONONONONONO when she was seven and a half months old.
Months passed and Christmas came. A child who was born for people not her parents, was given to me too. I loved her. I worshipped her perhaps even. There was nobody’s laugh I plied for more.
Nicki asked me to adopt her. I refused, I knew she wanted to commit suicide. It was such a battle because I so loved this child I anyway thought of as my daughter. It was only when I realised she may commit suicide anyway, that I agreed. On March 31 2006, I became a mother.
Not by blood. But she was given to me by someone who thought that a mother doesn’t give birth to a child, but that she grows with a child and raises that human being to heights neither could have possibly dreamed. She was my dream.
And I became a mother of the heart.
Ash mommy to 3 Angels
