for my mother, Zubeida Moolla 1934 – 2008.



(dedicated to exiles, refugees, and the brave South Africans who struggled against Apartheid tyranny within South Africa).


My mother passed away after a lengthy battle with Motor-Neurone Disease, also called ALS.


This poem is also dedicated to all the brave souls who are courageously battling illnesses and terminal diseases.


May we always salute them and their families’ courage in the face of indescribably hard circumstances).



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I remember the tears she shed,

as she longed for her distant abode,

she wept often then,

as she pined for her children, Tasneem and Azad,

and felt the future looked bleak,

on that dim, lonely road.



I remember the tears she shed,

when that telegram came one afternoon,

‘regret to inform you stop father passed away stop’,

She wept often after that,

for their last goodbye had been said too soon.



I remember the tears she shed,

on that glorious day in a February not that long ago,

when the prisoner Nelson Mandela finally walked out,

breathing the free air,

she wept less after that, for then she knew where they were to go.



I remember the tears she shed,

soaring high above the African skies heading back to her land,

those tears came out in soft sobs,

but her eyes were smiling,

defiant and full of new hope,

as she held tightly onto my father’s wrinkled hand.



I remember the tears she shed,

some years later,

on that peaceful late April 1994 morning,

when she stood and proudly bore the voting ink on her aging thumb,

she wept a lot that April evening,

knowing that a new day was dawning.



I also remember that Thursday not long ago,

as she was slipping away slowly,

she seemed not to weep,

after all the miles and places,

and after all the tears that she had cried,

I remember that she wept little then,

as she drifted off into an eternal sleep.



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(for my mother, Zubeida Moolla 1934 – 2008)


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