Yola's Shrine

My mother died three years ago today, and I want to honor her. In 1945, at twenty-years old, she came to South Africa from Czechoslovakia, the country of her birth. Her father and most of her relatives died in Auschwitz. She and my father divorced when I was young, but she never forgot and always thanked him for bringing her to South Africa. We had a difficult relationship, the Holocaust left its scars on her, and subsequently me. But when she was dying she said to me, "You are my angel," and I knew she meant it. So I take this moment, today to salute her courage, her fortitude, and her feistiness. To send her love.