My grandfather loved horses. He loved them so deeply it drove him to create, though not in the way most might imagine. He never rode a horse; he wrote about them. The first Black journalist at the biggest racing course in the city. Imagine it: a Black man writing about horses in apartheid South Africa, a racist regime where such ambition was deemed absurd by many. Insane, even. But he did it. My grandfather was the kind of man who didn't believe in boundaries, only starting lines. I grew up around horses, not in stables or pastures, but on paper. Frozen mid-gallop, muscles taut, victory in their eyes. They were captured in the photographs that accompanied my grandfather's articles, framed and hung on the walls of his study. His byline glinted proudly beneath each one, a testament to his craft. These weren't just pictures or stories. They were bricks in the home he built from the ground up, one word at a time. Sunday afternoons were for stories, beginning after Sunday lunch. We'd gather around his armchair in the lounge, eager for the tales born from his imagination. Horses with names like Minor's Revenge, a sleek, gray thoroughbred with a white stripe down its back. In one tale, Minor's Revenge was a cautionary figure in a story about greed, teaching my brother and me lessons on gluttony and sharing. Or there was Greased Lightning, a horse that drank from a well during a thunderstorm and gained the power to run faster than the wind but only when it rained. These weren't just stories. They were folk tales, life lessons wrapped in humor and hooves. My grandfather had a gift for spinning tales that left us in stitches while planting seeds of wisdom we wouldn't fully appreciate until much later. He was a very funny man, my grandfather. He believed that a smile costs nothing but gives much. He had the warmest, most radiant smile, a smile I can see vividly in my mind whenever life gets me down and keep in my heart always. I miss his smile. He was witty and had jokes for days, capable of putting a grin on anyone's face. When I was sad, I never stayed sad for long. I've spent hours throughout my life on my granddad's lap, laughing and soaking in his hard-won wisdom. He had a way of making the extraordinary seem possible, of turning the ordinary into magic. With every story he wrote, he built his home. With every story he told, he built his family. Though he is gone, he will always be remembered for the man he was, the best man I've ever known. Today, I love horses. I ride them almost every day. When I'm in the saddle, I think of him and all his stories, his voice bringing horses to life in our imaginations. I'm the granddaughter of a man who loved horses, a man who wrote his way into history, who built a legacy one story at a time. And every time I ride, I carry his love with me, galloping into the horizon of dreams he made possible.

It was at the tender age of 7 I first heard the phrase "The pen is mightier than the sword", penned in 1839 by novelist and playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Through elaborate examples and well thought out analogies, this metonymic adage was explained to me. However, it was not one that I could relate to at all. I was aware of the power the pen held when wielded in the hands of the great authors, poets and leaders of our world but I didn't think it would have much of an impact in mine. That was until my pen saved my life. Growing up, I had never (although advised by many) been one to keep a diary. Don't get me wrong, I tired. However, committing myself to such an important moment at the end of each day became a tedious task. This feeling only increased on days I didn't write, which left my book of recollections and reflections feeling incomplete. After reading the diary of Anne Frank in grade eight, the standard set by this particular thirteen-year-old girl and the basic mediocrity of whatever I had to write just didn't cut it. Now that I look back, I was very silly and I wish I had taken the advice. It may have prevented the consequence that would erupt in a girl that felt too much and had nowhere to purge or understand any of these feelings. I therefore resorted to storing my feelings in some pit inside myself (especially because I was never the ‘talk about my feelings' type). And the so called ‘bottling-it-up' method came with some toxic ramifications. However, during 2020, something changed. While the world around me was silenced and stilled, I ventured into that scary place inside myself, pen in hand. And so I began. I examined the terrain as I walked through the ruins. I picked up the shattered glass, lit up the darkness I painted stars in the sky. I felt the grief and panic and acknowledged the fear and pain and filled the cold with hope. I calmed the waves, plated my dreams and prayed for rain. I filled this pit with love and handled it with grace. I did it slowly, word by word, page by page. I wrote until I ran out of things to say and then wrote about that. In that way, I figured me out and maneuvered through the storm in my brain. I restored my light through syllables and vowels on an off-white page, or sometimes through the keys of my laptop. Quickly, it wasn't insignificant but instead the channel through which my thoughts and feelings escaped, and that's important. My ‘pen' did not move mountains or nations, nor did it completely vanquish my enemies. It did however remedy a lot of poisoned parts inside me. The feelings that plagued my spirit and continuously broke and overwhelmed me had a way out. My pen was a weapon of great healing confrontation and understanding which resulted in acceptance and forgiveness. My pen helped, helps and will continue to help me fight my pain in my pursuit of peace and will therefore always be my weapon of choice.

When I was little, I spent a lot of time on my mommy's lap. Listening, laughing, loving. For me, her lap was the safest place in the world, not to mention the most comfortable. I used to look up and admire the diamond pendant that hung from her neck. I always thought it was the most precious thing she owned, although she told me I was more precious but I don't think I ever quite believed her. One day, she turned me to face her and said that she would be sending me on a treasure hunt. No, this one didn't involve sweets or chocolate covered eggs, which greatly disappointed me. I watched her reach behind her head and unclasp the shiny chain. I was bewildered. Never before, not for as long as I had been a permanent resident of her lap, had I ever seen her take her pendant off. She looked down at my bewildered expression and laughed. Taking the diamond in her hand she held onto both sides and twisted. Just when I thought the sky was falling and it was officially the end of the world as we knew it, the diamond capsule opened revealing a heart. The heart was little and shiny. It looked like something I could easily loose and so I kept my hands on my lap and stared. The heart was somewhat incomplete. Well, there were pieces missing and a few chips on the edges but it was still, in so many ways, whole. I looked at my mom's face to see her smiling down at her hands and telling me that there, clutch between her fingers, laid her whole heart. At this point I wondered if I had somehow positioned myself incorrectly on her lap and I was somehow cutting off the circulation to her head because obviously mom wasn't feeling too good. There was no way her whole heart was that small. I mean with the amount of love she said she had for me, that couldn't possibly hold it all. Just before I reached over to feel her forehead she told me that it took her her whole life to find all the pieces and that still today, she was looking. She said that the most part of her heart, was me. By this point I was very confused. Then she tipped it over letting the small heart fall into her palm, leaving it's diamond case. Then she lifted the chain with the now empty diamond case and reached forward to clasp it around my neck. Still holding the little heart in her hand, she looked down at it and told me about the grand treasure hunt that would be the rest of my life. She said that I should go into the world not looking for but always ready to see and receive the love and beauty that awaits me everywhere I go. She told me to always try seeing the little hearts in everyone and remembering how much love they have the potential to hold. She said that sometimes they may be chipped like hers and missing a few pieces but they remain whole and will hopefully never break. Only later did I learn that my heart would also obtain a few chips and holes but like mommy promised, it never broke and it came with great healing and lessons. She said that I'll find most of my heart in myself and the rest from everything around me. She said that maybe one day I'll have my own children that will take up most of it. She said to protect it, like a diamond case and to give as much of the love that it holds away. She said that she promises that although it's small and fragile and may get lost or misplaced, that it will never 1. cease to be mine 2. run out of love to give and 3. run out of space for more. So, with the diamond pendant, that I promised to protect with my life, I would find the rest of the pieces of my heart and hold them in the diamond case close to my chest. I knew I had already found the first pieces from mommy's love and with that alone, I had an endless supply to share.