It’s more than a month now and I am still waiting. With time and money running out, my patience is also running out. The only thing I am left with is thirty rand and my dignity. Today is the day I miss my mother the most because my survival depends on it and she was the only one to know how to turn nothing into something — something good.

As I left my room to go to the shop, on my way I encountered two weak, very hungry and skinny kids, one about thirteen years old and the other around ten. The older one was sobbing whilst holding his younger sister. When he saw me, he shyly looked away, wiped his face and looked back at me, fully confident.

That’s when my heart broke in so many little pieces that I didn’t think twice to reach into my pocket and hand them my last and only survival parcel, my money. At first he hesitated because I could see in his eyes that that was more what they made in a day. I slowly turned around and as I was walking the youngest one ran up to me, gave me a hug and looked up to me and said with tears in her eyes, “Thank you,” and ran back to where I found them.

That made my heart bleed and my tears threatened to spill but I just swallowed the lump in my throat and kept walking, not even looking back.

I reached my room, which now became colder than the alleyway where I found those two children — orphans.

After thinking about them for some time, my reality kicked in, I am just as broke as they are now. No job and no money. I surely don’t want to go back home to show everyone the kind of disappointment and failure I am. Thinking of a way I anxiously started chewing on my nails and pacing around like a dying patient. Or what if I am dying. What if…

Beep beep. My phone went off and what I saw was either someone teasing me or someone testing me. My bank notified me of an amount of money that was transferred into my bank account.

Beep Beep. Another message. It read: “Whenever near or far my duty is to provide. Whether in desperate need of it or not, use it wisely. I know a mother’s instincts are always right. You left here with a purpose and not with much. I don’t even know how you survived because you didn’t ask for money. Call me back if you have time for an old granny like me. With love, Mother”.

That night after crying to my mother on the phone and thanking her, I told her everything, from how I found the place to how I found those two children.

A week later, and I was finally called for a job. I was happy but something still didn’t sit right with me and it was not the fact that I had to walk in the rain to the bus stop but something else.

I found myself walking to the very same spot where I received my blessings, the alley.
In the mean while it had stopped raining, there they were, under what seemed to be a box protecting them from the rain, holding onto each other for warmth. The little one pointed with her index finger, showing her brother, and smiled.

When all three of us were safe and warm inside, in front of the heater, my heart started warming up.

That was the day that I found out that Anna didn’t point to me that made her that happy, but to the rainbow that was behind me, because that was the day she knew her prayers were answered.

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