My mother had appointed me, through a lawyer, as her legal representative. I had access to her bank account and the right to sign for her. When I was checking the documents related to her death, I was dismayed to discover an abnormality on her original identity card. Her original ID card was a four-page booklet: on the first and second pages, the holder’s details and those of her parents, on the third and fourth pages, her marital status and the names of her children. The column of names stopped at eight. But my mother had nine children.

In the quiet of the grey morning, I was awakened by my mother’s voice as she tended to my brother, trying to persuade him to get out of bed, whispering with all the tenderness of a mother and reminding him of the duty and responsibility of an “eldest son who must accompany his father through the ups and downs of life.” The previous evening’s tiredness had completely worn me down after dinner, but I remembered a vague outline of a conversation between my father and my mother in which she objected to my father’s plan, citing my brother’s age. The decision was made: he was to accompany my father to the farm every day. All of a sudden, I lost my playmate and my leader too.