“How was your day mom?” I asked my mother as soon as she walked up to me. But, I spoke again before she could answer. “You know what, spare me the details, I can tell that you had an exhausting day, and your eyes also tell me that you are tired.”

“Ndalo, my baby, I’m so tired,” my mother responded. “I just want to go laydown in my room because my feet are killing me. And oh, I forgot my phone here today, and I know you must have been calling me. It’s just that, after getting an email that summoned the accounting department at work for some false financial report that was audited by the forensic auditor, I left the house in a hurry. I know I was supposed to work from home this week, but I ended up not doing it because of some fraudulent activities in my department. It is so exhausting, I tell you.”

While my mother was talking and feeling her pain, I looked at her and saw how the hours at her work frustrated the hell out of her. I then took her bags to the study, then went to her room to run her a hot bath so she could soak herself in it and relax. I thought that the bath might be able to rejuvenate her body, and that it would make her forget about her bad day for a while. When I was done running her bath, I went back to the study to stop her from working.

“Do you know what mom, give yourself a break, please, or else you’ll collapse” I said. “You’re overworking yourself, and that’s not good for anyone, both physically and mentally. So,” I continued while shutting her laptop and taking her out of the desk, “please go and soak yourself in the hot bath I ran for you. I even added your favourite lavender form bath in it. When you’re done, take a 2 hours nap, and I’ll be done cooking dinner by the time you wake up. Ngiyakucela Jiyane wam.”

I knew that I was a good speaker because I had gotten it from my late father. So, as I spoke, I knew for sure that my mother would not say no to being pampered like a baby. It was her weakness, and I knew it. Because I loved her and I wanted her to relax, I had to put the great news that I had to tell her on hold, and give her all the attention she needed. I knew I would definitely break the news at the dining table later on, and I could not wait to see how they were going to react.

When my mother finally went upstairs to take her bath, I went to the kitchen to cook one of her favourite dishes: beef stew and steamed bread, served with roasted vegetables. Simo also loved food. He was a foodie, and he was always in the kitchen to see how we prepared breakfast and dinner. His interest in food was so tremendous, that we would sometimes invite him to the kitchen and teach him how to prepare a few dishes in the house, and if we were not teaching him, he was always on YouTube, watching cooking shows, and he would always want me to cook what he had seen on his videos a day later.

As Simo’s big sister, I always asked him about his interests and, since he was in Grade 11 at the time, I always wanted to know what he wanted to do after finishing his matric. He always mentioned his passion for food, and it seemed like he had done a lot of research about what he actually wanted to do, and he was certain about it.

Whenever Simo and I spoke about his passion for food, I always regretted it because he always told me about this other prestigious culinary school in the UK, and whenever he started talking about it, he did not want to shut up. It was not like I was not happy for him though, it was just that I had a burning desire to see him being where he wanted to be, and it pained me to see him being unsure about it, and wondering if he would ever make it to the top.

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