Writing processes are always healing and reflective. A large part of my hopes for everything that I write and put out is for the work to heal me and work on me before anybody else and this process, thankfully has been that.

The stories that I have made offers to readers with, to find answers with me are ones that I deal with in my daily life. Questions around, how do you actually deal with grief? Also, we sure have a lot of faith in our super powers if we can set out our lives to deal with something so delicate in blues but colossal in pain.

It’s been about a year now since I lost my father and grief is tough and strange. It’s also stuck around me. It has been around long enough to not cause unpleasant discomfort but it’s discomfort that encourages me to be accountable to my own healing in moments when that is what I’m seeking for, and other times it’s laughs and other times it’s silence. In all of that, it has been very necessary to welcome all of it as it is.

Past experiences have an impact on us, how and who we were years ago has an impact on us – but so do our present selves. The idea of “healing bloodlines” is not a far fetched idea to chase in theory. It’s in changing how we talk to our own selves: when we dream, when we make mistakes, when we fail. By looking at myself in the mirror and liking the person that I see, by being deliberate in the ways that I love, by writing, there’s healing happening. It’s happening all around us at all times.

We are not writers because it’s the easiest thing to do, we do it because we hope that as Healers, this text that we desire so greatly to heal others will remember and find us too someday.

This is for Healers who are trying to find their healing practice. This is for those who cry because life is so beautiful. This is for writers who don’t know what they are wanting to do with their work but are doing the work nonetheless. This is for ooMafungwashe. This is for anyone who’s still thinking of writing but hasn’t quite done it yet. This is for those who chase after courage. This is for me too.

It is difficult. It is exhausting. It is hard to figure out. It is rewarding. It is funny. It is hours on Zoom. It is a lifetime of observing. It is also what we have been called to do.

This piece was written as part of the Fundza Fellowship programme.