from a distance
dr. gabriel

Explore the profound and instinctual connection between a mother and her child in this heartwarming story that spans birth, healing, and unconditional love

Stupidity and Bravery are identical twins.

In judging them apart we often get it wrong!

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As the foot of the wave hit the shallower shores, the hump rose like the back of a massive whale out of the ocean, sucking the trough in front empty in his hunger to grow. The boulders on the rocky floor, usually buried under 18 to 20 feet of water, burst through the surface, the current rushing around it, shredding the seaweed cover. The wave slid closer, the crest reaching higher and higher towards the clouds with every metre of approach.

Oom Danie’s back was as long and straight as a poplar tree.

Grandma dried her hands on her apron and pushed the door handle down. The loud knocking on the backdoor stopped.

“Come in, Danie”, Granma invited, crossing her hands behind her back. Oom Danie bent down under the door frame and offered his large hand in greeting. In his other hand, he held a flour bag. Grandma shook her head from side to side and explained:

Imagine you are visiting a potato farmer on his land. He invites you on a tour through his enterprise of potato production. You get to drive with him on his big red tractor that he carefully wheels between the rows of potato plants. ‘It has been a good year,’ he says, proudly pointing at the lush green plants ahead, pushing each other aside to breathe clean air and sunshine. Then he drops his plough, watch it through the back window and smiles as the big yellow potatoes pour out of the black soil. And suddenly, you realise that what you initially thought was the crop was only the visible evidence. The actual asset was invisible in the vault of the earth.

“I come to report an incident.”

The sergeant patiently continues with whatever he writes with a blue pen in a book. He must have done a lot of writing before, because only a few empty pages remain. He finally pushes a decisive full stop on the page and looks up. The streetlights pierce the thick morning fog, slip through the window, and cast yellow streaks over the clock on the wall. It is half past four, only an hour and a half before his shift ends.

After crossing the Mozambique Channel from Madagascar, Severe Tropical Cyclone Domoina made landfall in southern Mozambique on 28 January 1984, and moved across the border to the Makatini Flats and what was then Swaziland (now known as Eswanti) to dissipate over eastern parts of South Africa. The storm caused 100-year floods in South Africa, reached speeds of 100 km per hour, and bottomed out at 976 hPa.

It is a Saturday in Spring, and the venue is on a hill in Mission Beach, Tropical North Queensland. The green islands float below on silk, and the azure wrapping cradles the chalky sands, offering little handshakes of frothy waves to the beach. Why did I ever agree to a medical conference on a day like this?

The war in the windows has been going on for months.

Sue and Sarah lived right next to each other and spent their time spying on each other through their windows, brewing and stewing on new information. Sue’s dog was neglected; Sarah’s dog was barking and scaring Sue’s cat.

Mossel Bay shelters from the sea on the south coast of South Africa. The seaside of the land spear takes the brunt of the turbulent and unpredictable waters over the edge of the continental shelf, called the Agulhas Bank.

The pitch of the engine noise rose to a crescendo as the plane went into a dive, roaring over the hospital, sending dental syringes clattering on the steel tray.