The Caterpillars Spoke Not of Her Success but Her Weirdness. They Wanted Her to Change Back into What She Was, but She Had Wings.

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that she would not shy away from the truth. She was too afraid of losing something and being attached to something incase they left the way her old man did, so rather she would push it away.

People wanted her to change back into who she was, because she seemed almost weird and just merely strange. No one understood her. People longed to see the old, ecstatic Maria, but no. No, she was not gone, Maria was still there, but she grew. The mediocre people who hadn’t been through even a pitstop of pain, all failed to realize that life is not easy. They refused to understand what it’s really about and how to succeed, but through Maria’s mishaps in life, she taught us all.

She had this will power like no other, people would see this darkness inside of her but I saw the light shining through her heart. She never needed anyone’s help, she didn’t need no psychologist, or counselor. She needed her brain and she needed to pray. She taught herself how to be strong. She never felt sorry for herself. Maria always told us, " don’t break down so badly, because that’s when you’re going to give up", she told us " fight, fight until you can’t fight no more, and don’t give in so easily".

Most people try to look for patterns, because that’s what humans do to try and make sense of things. In hope of some divine order. And you look in movies and songs and the things that you read for symbols, points and swirls that match your own, but the only real pattern there is, is the one you make when you hold up a mirror. And reflect.

That’s what I loved about Maria, she depended on nothing but her brain. She said that if something did not help her to grow, it was best she let it go.

Maria was different. She taught us that it’s about you, she told us, "when you are despondent ask yourself, what do you want in life? Where would you like to be? Have you thought about progressing and changing, have you thought about growing from where you are now to where you want to be? Don’t be that person that sees no more beyond what’s in front of your eyes. Why are humans so narrow minded? Most of us are all stuck in societies opinion about life that we don’t know who we are. When last have you checked about what’s your hobbies, what do you like and dislike, then you say you’re lost? Well of course you will be lost, if you don’t set goals and determine how you’re going to reach them, then how will you progress. How will you progress in life, you’re always going to be stuck in the same position, complaining and yearning for help. Why? Because if you refuse to progress and make excuses, you’re going to carry on going around in circles and circles and not progress. It’s up to you to change what you’re complaining about, worry about yourself and love yourself and then you’ll find people wanting you more. "

In school we’re taught about what is one plus one and we read Shakespeare and we have to memorize our English and Afrikaans speeches, and we learn all these things, but they haven’t taught us how to deal with heartbreak and loss. They haven’t taught us how to deal with the pain of watching your grandmother die as her lungs began to fail, or how to deal with losing a best friend to an unsaid goodbye. At home, my mother taught me that life is not easy. Life is not about Shakespeare’s characters or how all the radius are equal in a circle, and it’s not how the author describes the characters. It’s about those nights that you lay awake

missing someone and wishing that things could be different or that things could be the same again, and it’s about picking yourself up after being in the dumps for so long. It’s about doing things for yourself, by yourself.

That’s how Maria grew. She had wings, she was independent, but she never stopped learning. As the saying goes. "When she transformed into a butterfly, the caterpillars spoke not of her beauty, but of her weirdness. They wanted her to change back into what she always had been. But she had wings".