Turning 114 is something special and family, friends and neighbours of Mariam Ebrahiem from Brooklyn celebrated her life on Thursday 28 July.
“We are originally from Zimbabwe, the former Rhodesia, and she has dementia and cannot remember life under former presidents Ian Smith and Robert Mugabe. She joined me and my family in South Africa in 2003 and hasn’t been back to Zimbabwe since. I am taking care of her and sometimes when she remembers incidents she shares it with me and my children. The past year this seldom happens as she is in bed but I let her walk in the passage and in the yard, just to keep the blood flowing,” says Fatima Richards, her only daughter.
Ebrahiem has 18 grandchildren and they all spoil her.
Recipe to life
“When my mom is in the present and you ask her, what is the recipe for her long life, she’ll tell you that she obeys her God and shares the little she has with everyone she thinks needs it more.
“Last year she had Covid and we thought we were going to lose her, but she told me that her God says it is not her time yet and we as her family treasure every moment we have with her now.
“I came to South Africa in 1996 and stayed here permanently from 1999. My husband was born and bred in District Six and he came to Zimbabwe to start a new life and that is how and when we met. My mom being a farmer in Zimbabwe farmed wheat, rice and maize.
“When she has a memory she’ll tell my children to clean their rooms and not leave clothing lying around in their rooms.
“She was fond of cooking and when a passerby walked past her home in Zimbabwe she would give them something to eat as well as food for the road. Being a close-knit community in Zimbabwe everyone knew your ins and outs and they share everything with each other.
Before she was bedridden, she liked to do the dishes. When I became interested in men she told me that I had to wait for the right person to arrive as she won’t welcome every Tom, Dick and Harry. Marriage is for a lifetime and it is important to choose correctly the first time and that is what I did,” Richards chuckles.
As a child growing up in Zimbabwe, Richards remembers her mom had an outstanding dress sense.
“She was always dressed to the nines, but her hair was really her crown. She would plait her hair and roll it around her head and always wore bows, pink and red ones. I was never interested in cooking and was more into playing tennis and bookkeeping. She would always scold me and say I should learn how to cook because my future husband would want to eat.
“My grandmother Zingazwo Rori made me cook, but not as well as my mother.
“I got divorced when my husband moved back to South Africa and after ten years he came back, because he missed me and his four children, and we remarried and moved back to Cape Town.
My mother’s words that you have to choose wisely the first time which I really took to heart. If I’d known that he would come back to Zimbabwe I would have worn a ring and told him, sorry darling I am married, but his visit was a surprise and unexpected and I couldn’t make up a story,” Richards laughs.
Another fond memory about her mom is that she would always say, “good things happen to those who wait.”
