Unsilenced Shadows

The shadows of my past are haunting me, no ways of running away from my evil deeds.

I have no power to turn back the hands of time and undo my wrongs, what is done is done.

All I can do now is cry as I watch my life turn upside down, till the death that I deserve drags me into the bush of fire to suffer.

Hey, my name is Sam Mda and this is my story.

Once I was a little boy, so pure and innocent. All I used to do was play by the book. Everything I have ever achieved or done, I did it overboard, but you know when life happens it happens.

Sometimes we lose control, lured by the good life that we always wanted to be a part of, so desperate of reaching our goals, our desires, end up losing ourselves.

I don't want to point fingers but I prefer to carry the burden of my cross by myself because, all in all, I had a choice and I didn't choose wisely.

Please don't judge. Just read and empathise with me.

Things were all right before I and my family relocated back to Durban after my father's death. His death brought nothing but misery in our lives.

Our home was no longer the same.

It was huge, cold and dull for the three of us. Oh, and, by the way, I have a small brother called King. I won't lie, my mother was trying by all means to keep the fire burning.

But how when she is hurting too?

I could literally hear her cry every night from work. Yes, she is a successful business woman, by that one would expect her to be strong and show no emotions. That is what she was trying to do before us, act strong in front of us and cry in private. Her prayers were to God to give her strength to govern this home and provide her with ideas on how to raise her two boys. I was a man at that time, or at least that was what I believed, so I was old enough to play the role of a father to my younger brother but I wasn't willing to tell mum that.

Why?

Because I'm still a little baby in her eyes, it will probably remain like that forever. My father's death was killing her but I don't blame her. My father was the only man she ever loved, her first and her last. He was the only man that knew her nakedness obviously apart from people who knew her when she was a baby.

She missed daddy dearly.

We had to move out of the house as part of therapy. We wanted to heal and forget but it was impossible in this house. We shared lot of good and bad memories in it.