I wish I had heard her sooner when she called my name so I could rescue her. She was ill, diagnosed with a disease whose name I don’t know.

My mother and I are not that close. I grew up in the village while she was in the city, working to provide for my younger brother and me. He is still in the village and I moved in with my mother after matric.

I always wished to study somewhere far from my mom, aunts and uncles, whom I call my parents. “Ga mma ga mpone,” they would say to describe universities or tertiary institutions. I lost my dad eleven years ago. It still haunts me. I did not know him and that makes it worse. The void of his absence keeps on emptying and emptying each year I grow older.

I applied at multiple universities: the University of Johannesburg, Wits, University of Pretoria, and the Tshwane University of Technology. As much as I wanted to be far from my parents, I still wanted to be in Gauteng, not anywhere else. Why would I care about the beach while I could mine gold in Gauteng?

Sadly, all the varsities rejected me because my admission points score were low. I was faced with either an unwanted gap year, or to settle for what I didn’t want: UNISA. I didn’t want to live with my parents, I wanted freedom and independence. But then I soon realised that the lemons life presented me with did not always make lemonade.

I could not go to these other colleges to upgrade my marks, I had had enough with 12 years of formal schooling already. I would not spend another year in some maths or physical science class, trying to convince myself that I could score better this time.

Moving in with my mother wasn’t easy. She was presented with a 17-year old child to deal with, whom she missed almost all the moments in his life. I only saw her during school holidays and those few days of December. Then she was gone and I was left with my grandparents.

So she had it tough, did not know where to pick up and ride along with this life thing. I didn’t blame her, every mother would love to be part of their children’s lives. But sometimes, more often, situations dictate otherwise.

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