Mapisarema: Chapter One- A Life I Never Planned, A Love I Never Expected

There are moments in life that arrive unannounced, not with a dramatic knock on the door, but with the soft, persistent hum of a kettle reaching its boil, a sound so ordinary it almost feels insulting when placed against the weight of everything you are carrying. I remember standing in my kitchen, my hands resting on the cool surface of the counter, my eyes fixed on nothing in particular while my mind raced through a thousand different directions I had no intention of following. The kettle was sitting on its stand, but I had already lost the thread of why I had even turned it on in the first place, my thoughts having drifted into that familiar fog that comes when you are doing everything for everyone except yourself. Then it clicked off, that sharp little sound it makes when the water is ready, and I simply stood there, unmoving, before reaching for my iPhone and beginning to scroll through WhatsApp without any real purpose. The group chats were buzzing with their usual noise, the direct messages were few and far between, mostly people asking about livestock I was supposedly selling from the farm, and I realized in that moment how disconnected I had become from the very life I was supposed to be running. The farm was something I barely touched anymore, everything handled by my manager VaMaguraushe, who managed the sales and the accounting while I remained in my lane, the numbers person, the one who calculated profit and loss and thought about the future without ever getting my hands dirty in the present. I had taken a short course in business management somewhere along the way, attended countless meetings, and somewhere in all of that, I had convinced myself that my role was to make plans, not to step into the mud of the fields where the real work was happening. That morning in the kitchen, with the kettle cooling beside me and my phone glowing in my hand, I was a woman suspended between the life I had built and the life that had been given to me without my asking.

“Morning mommy…” The voice pulled me from my thoughts, and I turned to see my son Leon walking into the kitchen, holding the hand of my youngest, Larona. The two of them were in their own little world, playfully wiping spit on each other and pulling funny faces, laughing so hard that they barely noticed me standing there until they were right in front of me. “Mornin’ nana… Laro…” I said, and they both responded with a playful “Mama!” in unison, their voices overlapping in that way children have when they are too happy to care about timing. “Lee, have you washed your face?” I asked, and he answered with a drawn-out “Yeshhh, tagezhaaa…” but I could tell he was talking more to his sister than to me, and that was when their laughter started all over again. I was a modern mother, two children, financially stable, but with one problem that sat at the center of everything—I was a single mother. Everyone knows that being a single mother comes with its own levels of difficulty, and while one child might still feel manageable, two children somehow make life feel like it is constantly testing you, pushing you to see how much you can carry before you break. I cooked cereal for my children myself because they had never been able to handle milk, both of them lactose intolerant in a way that made store-bought alternatives feel impersonal, and I found a strange satisfaction in doing things for them with my own hands even though I had maids who could have handled it. I wanted to give them every piece of my time, to make sure they never felt the absence of the other parent too keenly, to fill that space with so much of myself that they would never have to wonder what they were missing.

Leon was ten years old, in grade five, and Larona was three, attending a daycare near the house, but there was something I had noticed early on about my daughter—she could not stay home without her brother. I had learned to schedule their routines together, so that when Leon went to school, she went to her daycare, because the bond between them was so strong that her little arms would wrap around his leg and refuse to let go until she was certain he was coming back. They loved each other in a way that left me speechless, a connection so pure and so complete that I often found myself just watching them, wondering at the miracle of how they had found each other in this world. But beneath all of this, beneath the laughter and the morning routines and the careful way I balanced their lives, there was a truth I carried quietly, a truth that Leon was not my biological son. He was the child of the late Derrick Macheka, a man I had been involved with in a relationship that carried more complexity than most people could understand. When Derrick and his wife died in the crossfire of their own war, Leon was the one left standing, the survivor of a tragedy that had erased both his parents from this earth in one swift, brutal stroke. After their deaths, he had gone to live with his grandparents in Murehwa, but that arrangement had not lasted long. A will was read in the city, a will written by Derrick himself, laying out everything he had left behind with a precision that suggested he had known his time was limited. That will gave me everything—the farm, the house, the money in the bank, all of the assets—but there was a condition attached, a condition that I would care for Leon until he turned twenty-one, at which point everything would ultimately become his. The vehicles were to be sold, the proceeds sent to his parents, and everything else was placed in my hands with the understanding that I would be the one to raise his son.

I was told there was a letter, a personal letter addressed to me alone, and when I took it in my trembling hands and opened it, I found Derrick’s words waiting for me like a message from beyond the grave. He told me the truth in that letter, confessing that he had been the writer behind the books published under the name Violine, a secret he had carried through his life without ever revealing to anyone. He told me that in his entire life, he had never known real love until he found it with me, that whatever had existed between us was different from everything else he had experienced. He spoke of the pregnancy, the one I was carrying, and he begged me not to end it, telling me that this child would be named Larona if it was a girl or Leeroy if it was a boy, and that this child would be the bridge between his past and his future. But the most important part of that letter, the part that undid me completely, was his request that I take Leon as my own son, that I raise him alongside his sibling, that the two children grow up together as brother and sister, bound not by blood but by the love that I would give them. He wrote those words with a trust that felt almost undeserved, ending with a simple declaration: “I trust you Shanillar.” I finished reading that letter with tears streaming down my face, my hands shaking, my heart cracking open in a way it had never done before, and I whispered to no one and to everyone, “Yes… yes… I will do it love.” That was the moment when my new life truly began, when Leon became my first child and the pregnancy growing inside me continued its course toward bringing Larona into the world.

From the day I took Leon in, I loved him as my own. In my community, I was called “mai Leon,” mother of Leon, and though the title came with a certain weight, I carried it proudly because the truth was that I had been given a son through love, not through blood. But that truth did not come without its costs. There were people in the church who turned against me, who whispered behind my back, who labeled me with names that suggested I had simply been a blesser, someone who had traded something unspeakable for the material things I now possessed. They did not know the letter, did not know the love, did not know the grief and the responsibility that I had accepted in the quiet of my own heart. They saw a woman with a farm and a house and money in the bank, and they assumed the worst because it was easier than understanding the truth. But I knew the truth, and the truth was that the pregnancy had never been a lie, and Leon had become part of my family in a way that no amount of gossip could ever undo. My life in Masasa started there, alongside the two children I loved more than anything in this world, and that was the beginning of my Psalms—love, tears, and the slow, painful process of healing wounds that had been open for far too long.

Looking back on that journey now, I find myself reflecting on what it has meant to walk this path, to carry these responsibilities, to be the mother that Derrick trusted me to be. There are things I have learned that no course in business management could have taught me, lessons that came not from books or meetings but from the daily, grinding reality of raising two children while managing a farm that I barely understood and a life that often felt like it was held together with nothing more than hope and exhaustion. The farm, for all its profitability, was never something I felt truly connected to. VaMaguraushe handled the day-to-day operations, the buying and selling, the negotiations with buyers, the endless accounting that made my head spin even though numbers were supposed to be my specialty. I focused on the profit and loss statements, on the long-term planning, on the things that felt safe and distant, far away from the actual dirt and livestock that were the real source of our income. There was a comfort in that distance, a way of convincing myself that I was still in control even when I was holding on by the thinnest of threads. But the truth was that the farm was Derrick’s legacy, not mine, and I was simply its caretaker, holding it together until Leon was old enough to take over what was rightfully his.

The children, though, were never something I kept at a distance. From the moment Larona was born, from the moment I looked at her face and saw Derrick’s features blended with my own, I knew that I would give everything to both of them. Leon adjusted to his new life in ways that surprised me, taking to Larona with a devotion that went beyond what anyone could have expected. He was protective of her in a way that felt ancient, as if some instinct deep within him recognized that she was the last piece of his father still living in this world. He would carry her on his back when she was tired, feed her when she was fussy, tell her stories that he made up on the spot, stories that always ended with the two of them together, facing whatever challenges came their way. Watching them together was like watching a slow, beautiful healing take place, a reminder that even in the midst of loss, love finds a way to rebuild what has been broken. There were mornings when I would stand in the doorway of their room, watching Leon carefully arranging Larona’s toys while she slept, and I would feel something shift inside me, something that made all the whispers and all the judgments fade into irrelevance. This was my family, these were my children, and nothing anyone said could take that away from me.

But being a single mother to two children, one of whom carries the weight of a legacy he does not yet fully understand, is not something I would describe as easy. There are nights when sleep does not come, when the silence of the house feels too heavy, when I find myself lying awake and wondering if I am doing enough, if I am giving them everything they need, if Derrick’s trust in me was misplaced. There are moments when the farm demands attention I do not have the energy to give, when VaMaguraushe calls with problems I do not know how to solve, when the numbers on the profit and loss statements refuse to add up in ways that make sense. There are days when Leon comes home from school with questions I am not ready to answer, questions about his parents, about what happened to them, about why he is living with me instead of with the grandparents who could not keep him. And there are moments with Larona, moments when she looks at me with those eyes that are so much like her father’s, when I feel the weight of everything I promised him pressing down on my chest until I can barely breathe. This is the reality of my life, not the polished version I present to the world, but the raw, unvarnished truth of a woman who said yes to something she did not fully understand and has spent every day since trying to live up to that yes.

There is also the matter of the community, of the church that turned its back on me, of the people who still look at me with suspicion when I walk through the market or attend the occasional gathering. I have learned to live with their judgments, to hold my head high even when I can feel their eyes on my back, to remind myself that their opinions are built on assumptions that have nothing to do with the truth of my life. But there are moments when it still stings, when someone makes a comment that cuts a little too deep, when I am reminded that no matter how much I give to these children, there will always be those who see me as an outsider, as someone who does not belong in the story they have constructed. I have learned to find my sanctuary in the small things—the sound of Leon’s laughter, the way Larona reaches for my hand without thinking, the quiet moments in the kitchen when the kettle boils and the world outside seems to fade away. These are the things that sustain me, that remind me why I said yes in the first place, that keep me moving forward even when every part of me wants to stop.

If I were to sit down and evaluate this life I have built, to weigh the pros and cons of everything I have taken on, I would have to be honest about both the light and the shadow. The pros are, in many ways, the things that anyone looking from the outside would see first. I have financial stability, a farm that generates income, a house that provides shelter, and two children who fill my days with a love that I never knew I needed. I have the satisfaction of knowing that I kept my promise to Derrick, that I gave Leon a home and a family when he had lost everything, that I raised Larona alongside her brother in a way that honored his final wishes. I have the privilege of watching them grow, of seeing Leon become a young man who carries himself with a dignity that would make his father proud, of witnessing Larona develop into a bright, curious child who asks questions about everything and refuses to accept easy answers. I have the comfort of knowing that even in the midst of loss, I have created something lasting, something that will outlive me and continue to shape the lives of these two people I love more than my own existence. I have learned to be stronger than I ever thought I could be, to carry burdens I never imagined I would have to carry, to find joy in the ordinary moments that make up the fabric of a life lived with purpose.

But the cons are real, and they are heavy, and they deserve to be named just as honestly as the pros. There is the isolation that comes with being a single mother, the loneliness that settles into the bones on nights when the children are asleep and there is no one to share the quiet with, no one to talk through the decisions that feel too big to make alone. There is the constant pressure of being everything to everyone, of having to be the provider and the nurturer and the disciplinarian and the comforter, all rolled into one person who is never allowed to have an off day because there is no one else to step in when she falters. There is the weight of the farm, of managing something I never asked for and never wanted, of being tied to a piece of land that carries memories I would rather forget and responsibilities I did not choose. There is the judgment of the community, the whispers that never quite stop, the feeling of being watched and evaluated and found wanting by people who have never walked a single step in my shoes. There is the grief that I carry for Derrick, the love that was cut short before it had a chance to fully bloom, the knowledge that he is not here to see the children grow, to witness the beautiful people they are becoming. And there is the fear, the constant, gnawing fear that I am not enough, that I am failing them in ways I cannot see, that one day Leon will resent me for the life I gave him, that Larona will question the choices I made, that everything I have sacrificed will not be enough to make up for what they have lost.

There are also the practical struggles that come with raising two children with different needs, different temperaments, different ways of moving through the world. Leon, at ten, is beginning to ask questions that go deeper than I am prepared to answer. He wants to know about his father, about what kind of man he was, about why he is not here to teach him the things that fathers teach their sons. He wants to know about his mother, the woman who died alongside Derrick, and I find myself walking a careful line between honesty and protection, trying to give him enough truth without burdening him with details that would only cause more pain. Larona, at three, is a whirlwind of energy and curiosity, demanding attention in ways that sometimes leave me exhausted, her lactose intolerance making meal planning a constant exercise in creativity, her attachment to Leon so strong that separating them for even a few hours feels like a surgical procedure. And through it all, I am the one holding the center, the one who has to be steady when everything around me feels like it is shifting, the one who cannot afford to break because there is no one else to pick up the pieces.

The farm adds another layer of complexity to everything. VaMaguraushe is competent, I trust him with the daily operations, but there are decisions that only I can make, decisions about investments and expansions and the long-term direction of the business. I sit in meetings with buyers and suppliers, I review contracts I barely understand, I smile and nod and pretend to be more confident than I feel because the alternative would be to admit that I am in over my head. The profit and loss statements that used to feel like my domain now feel like foreign languages, the numbers swimming before my eyes as I try to make sense of margins and overheads and the endless calculus of running an agricultural operation in a market that changes with the seasons and the weather and the whims of forces I cannot control. There are days when I wonder what Derrick was thinking when he left all of this to me, whether he overestimated my abilities or underestimated the weight of what he was asking. And then I remember his words, the trust he placed in me, the simple declaration that he believed in me, and I find the strength to keep going, to keep pretending, to keep holding it all together even when I feel like I am falling apart.

But for all the weight, for all the struggle, for all the moments when I question everything, there is a joy in this life that I would not trade for anything. It is in the small things, the ordinary moments that no one writes about in books or talks about in meetings. It is in the way Leon helps Larona tie her shoes without being asked, the way he reads her bedtime stories in voices that make her laugh until she snorts, the way he looks at her with a tenderness that reminds me of his father. It is in the way Larona runs to me when I come home, her arms outstretched, her face lit up like I am the most important person in her world. It is in the quiet evenings when the three of us sit together, watching something on television or just talking about nothing, and I feel a sense of peace that I never thought I would find again after Derrick died. It is in the knowledge that I am keeping a promise, that I am honoring a love that was real even if it was complicated, that I am giving two children a chance to grow up together, to be siblings in the truest sense of the word, bound by something deeper than biology.

The journey has not been easy, and I know that it will not get easier anytime soon. There will be more questions from Leon as he grows older, more complexities to navigate as he approaches the age when the farm and everything else will become his. There will be more challenges with Larona, more decisions to make about her education and her future, more moments when I have to be both mother and father to a daughter who deserves to have both. There will be more whispers from the community, more judgments from people who will never understand, more moments when I have to dig deep and find the strength to keep going even when every part of me wants to give up. But I have come this far, and I will keep going, because that is what I promised, because that is what love requires, because these children are worth every sacrifice and every struggle and every sleepless night.

If there is one thing I have learned from all of this, it is that the life we plan and the life we end up living are rarely the same thing. I never planned to be a single mother, never planned to raise a son who was not biologically mine, never planned to manage a farm in a town where I would always be something of an outsider. But here I am, living this life, making it work day by day, finding meaning in the chaos and joy in the struggle. The morning in the kitchen, with the kettle boiling and my mind wandering, was just one moment in a long line of moments that have made up my life, but it was a moment that reminded me of how far I have come, of how much I have survived, of how much I am still capable of. I am Shanillar, mother of two, keeper of a promise, survivor of loss and judgment and the endless weight of carrying a legacy that was never meant to be mine alone. And I am still standing, still loving, still giving everything I have to the children who have become my whole world. The Psalms I spoke of at the beginning of this journey are still being written, one day at a time, one moment at a time, one act of love at a time. And no matter what comes next, I will keep writing them, because this is my life, and I would not have it any other way.