Ma Wa Gray

I have been in the teaching business for some time now. And when you've been in the teaching business for some time you walk some pretty intense journeys with the varying types of children in your care. There are the supported and ambitious kids, the neglected but trying hard kids, the neglected but have given up kids, the kids who are a little different, the kids who can kick a ball hard but battle to write a sentence, the middle of the range, sunny kids - and within these varying classifications are a myriad of others who all speak of the rainbow that can make up a classroom at any given moment in time. Within this rainbow is a very special group of children. And most of them have a very special something to them. They are the kids whose parents (very often moms) have cancer. This post comes entirely from my perspective as a teacher and at the start I want to acknowledge that I will never know the full extent of how it must feel for either a parent or chi...

  Let me just say that you were golden long before a buzzer told you that you were golden. And you are alive with more life than most people I've ever seen. And you are most certainly Chosen. I just read some of your blogs. And I just have to say a very broken, sobbing thank you. Thank you for bringing God into the ugly, human places. Thank you for acknowledging Him through the vomit and spit. Thank you for encouraging us to get low. Thank you for guaranteeing that He will get low with us. It is very rare to find a writer who speaks the breath of God so directly through their words, but you do. They move in a way that is both completely human and completely not. I suppose that is His constant hope for us - to be made of sand but to have spirits that live elsewhere. I will be praying for you. I will be praying that you will have enough energy to face what must be an overwhelmingly exhausting outpouring of love. That your body will be able to absorb as much adoration that it needs wi...

I don't know if you've noticed but there are a lot of pretty tired people walking around of late. I would argue that the predominant group of tired people falls in the category of anyone with a child under seven. This year with a return to school our children have been hit with a cocktail of viruses that should only really take place during the End Days. I'm talking about fountains of snot and vomit as far as the eyes can see. I'm taking Vaseline drenched 'bum sweets' administered to shaking babies in the early hours of the morning. I'm talking emergency trips to the ER with dehydrated six year olds. My immediate circle of family and friends have seen it all of late. Last night, for example, a work colleague, my sister-in-law and I were doing conference calls at 22:00 to gauge the treatment of a vomiting, fevered 14 month year old.  Talking about the End Days I recon Revelations should mention Calpol and tepid baths at least nine times. John (the author) was...

  I remember the moment I fell in love with with my husband. It was the opposite of first sight. In fact we were probably a good 300km away from each other. I was sitting in my moms parked car outside the only grocery store that the little South African village of Winterton has and Stephen was sitting at his desk in Johannesburg distractedly text messaging a curly haired girl he had met while he was supposed to be writing some article on a 4x4 truck. It was a text message that did it. I still remember the words - ‘carry the four’. Stephen had made a joke about math and I still laugh about it 11 years later.  I was so paralytic with mirth by the time my mom got back to the car that I could barely speak.  It is also Stephen who has recently introduced me to your writing. He is the gift that keeps on giving. We wake up in the morning and silently read your next offering and if needs be we have our little post match chat about it as we prepare our children’s breakfast. That’s...

My trip down Nostalgia Lane started two nights ago when I watched three elderly. overweight men and three ageless (if somewhat botoxed) skinny women, who appeared to be half the men’s age, talk about a TV show they were all in. They were the people who taught us that no one told us life was going to be this way.  I think that nothing gives further evidence to this than the actors themselves - Matthew Perry barely said two words. Jennifer Anniston (the only one to have her own child in the series) remains childless. Matt Le Blanc eventually ate too much trifle. Custard - good! Jam - good! Meat - good! And Courtney Cox has lost all control of her facial muscles. But oh my word did I cry. Because life has happened - even to them.  The following day I ventured up Roberts Road to my alma mata for my 20 year reunion. And what a joy to be reunited with our mismatched herd of goodie goodies, rebels, geniuses who were prone to trip and curly haired  girls who thought they should b...