Mum passed away in May. She was ready to leave and join her loved ones across the great river. Her mother, father, brother, grandparents and aunties waiting on the other shore. Her husband and son too, our dear father and brother. She left with the same grace as she had lived her life. Delicately, with a gentle gaze and a smile from the heart. I struggle to write these lines in English, as though Mum’s passing could only be expressed in the language of her childhood, with its