THE old lady sat in her rocking chair on the patio, an open Bible, its pages ruffled with age, lying on her lap. Her eyes held a vacant look as she stared across the open yard to somewhere beyond, silent words coming from her lips.

She sat there day after day in her loneliness, but God’s words she read gave her life and hope for each new day. The words her trembling lips always whispered no one heard but her and God, “My son.”
The ache in her heart was deeper than the seas, for he was no more with her, and time and time again, as she sat there alone with her thoughts, she would relive the days of her life twenty-five years ago.
A single mother she had been for three girls and a boy, vending food on the pavement; a poor and simple life. But for her, her children were her richness, and she had worked from dawn to dusk to make life good with what little she had. Her love as a mother sweetened their tea, buttered the bread, and gave cozy comfort to their modest home. The girls matured and found strong footholds, moving on to build their own homes and families, and she was left with her youngest child.
The divine love of a mother and son; the wonderful blessed life they shared was like a sacred bond. And he had promised her that he would never leave; that he would build his life so they could always be together.
But fate holds the reigns of life, and designs each page.
A day she always remembered when he hugged her before leaving on a trip with friends to a resort on the highway. Late afternoon became night, and she had begun to worry when a call at the door changed their lives forever, for tragedy had walked in, unannounced.
The police said a man had died on the farm where the boys had been, and her son and his friends were detained as suspects. “NO!” she had cried with every fibre in her motherly being. “My son is a good boy; you are wrong!”
At the police station, he had reached for her hands, tears in his eyes.
“I didn’t do it, Mother; I was trying to help the man. Someone left him there to die.”
She had looked deep into his eyes and had known he was telling the truth, because she was his mother; but the victim’s family, rich land owners, built such a strong case, a poor boy’s words, his mother’s pleas and the Church could not stop a guilty verdict, for his own friends betrayed him, except one who stayed true and shared the death penalty.
A mother’s hopes were shattered, and her appeal was met with closed doors. On the day of his execution, her heart bled rivers of blood, and as her trembling lips kissed him, she said:
“This is not goodbye, my son. I will still see you every day, and hear your voice; the songs you always sing. You’ll always be with me.” He had held on to her, not wanting to let go; not wanting to break his promise to leave her, but no one can change fate. She had stood outside the prison walls, and the sound of the trap-door was like a sword through her heart. Her life lost all its true meaning, and no one, not even her other children, could console her. “The truth must be told,” she continued to say. “Lies took my son away from me.”
Time went by, and she grew older and feebler, but she held onto life, wanting for the truth to come from somewhere. She could hear from afar angels singing, and she whispered to the Lord: “I know my son is in Heaven with You, and when it’s my time to come home, please send him for me so we can walk home together.”
One day, an old man, a stranger, walked into the yard and looked at her a long time; then he said, “I’m terribly sorry for your loss.” He handed her a letter and left as quietly as he had come. She opened the letter with trembling hands, and read the words slowly:
“Dear ma’am,
“If you’re reading this letter, it means I have died. Bad deeds and lies was my life, but this one thing I want to clear up, for I know how you are hurting. Your son was innocent; I was the guilty one, and I set it up so he could take the fall. His friends betrayed him for money. I know it’s too late to say sorry, but I knew the truth would console your heart.”
She closed her eyes with a deep sigh, a dark burden lifted from her mind after twenty-five years. The songs of angels drew closer, and one beautiful day, a handsome young man dressed in Heavenly white stopped by. He smiled at her and took her hand. “The Lord has sent me, Mother, so we can walk home together.”
She smiled, the ache gone; happiness filled her heart. A mother’s love truly defined. To Heaven she walked, with her son.