I cannot but think back, how two years ago I called mum at this very spot. I grit my teeth as I listened to her weak voice reminisce the past, how she and I talked about our first visit here together as a family back in 1994....
I asked if she could hear the Falls, hear the powerful sounds of nature, hear the unending echo of the flow of water... She could not feel it's power, its incessant sounds and the damp on my face.
I broke down and howled. Tears poured from my eyes like I've not done for months. I couldn't cry in front of her as her body weakened and thinned , as I watched her become skin and bones and as cancer robbed her of life and colours. The falls were so powerful, majestic, beautiful.... My mum was once so in my eyes, and has always been so beautiful, kind and patient. Yet, she was losing her life, losing her colours, and I knew that soon I would lose her...
I broke down after speaking to her.
Cried just as I am crying now. Uncontrolled outpouring of emotions, of tears that I could not cry before because I needed to be brave and strong in front of her, in front of everyone. But deep inside I was in pain, hurting and crying. Then, as I am now.
Two years on, her body has gone to ashes, her belongings stored in a space I do not dare to enter, in boxes I do not have the courage to unpack or touch.
I watch the Falls and realise again how much I miss her... The force of nature is so raw, so strong, so powerful. It gives and it takes, and what are we but little human beings at the mercy of its whim?
Two years, twenty years later, so much has changed...
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