<p><span style='background-color: transparent; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;'><br/></span></p><p><span style='background-color: transparent; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;'>I don’t know her name.</span><br/></p><p><span style='background-color: transparent; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;'><br/></span></p><p><span style='background-color: transparent; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;'><br/></span></p><p><span style='background-color: transparent; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;'>I d</span><span style='background-color: transparent; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;'>on’t know where she’s from, or what her story is. But when I saw her—captured in that image, leaning toward her child, both of them made of scattered fragments—I felt something I couldn’t explain.</span><span style='background-color: transparent; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;'><br/></span></p><p><span style='background-color: transparent; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;'><br/></span></p><p><span style='background-color: transparent; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;'>S</span><span style='background-color: transparent; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;'>he wasn’t looking at the camera. Her eyes were fixed on the small face in front of her. Calm, tender, full of a kind of love that doesn’t need words. The child looked up at her with quiet trust, the kind only a mother could earn.</span></p><p><span style='background-color: transparent; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;'><br/></span></p><p><span style='background-color: transparent; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;'>And though their faces were crumbling into tiny pieces, fading into the air, the bond between them seemed unbreakable.</span><br/></p><p><span style='background-color: transparent; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;'><br/></span></p><p><span style='background-color: transparent; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;'>It was clear—they were not together anymore. Not in the way they once were. Something had come between them. Distance, time, maybe even loss. But whatever it was, it had left a space that even love couldn’t quite close.</span><br/></p><p><br/></p><p>Still, she leaned in.</p><p><br/></p><p>That simple gesture said more than any story could. It said, “I’m still here.”</p><p>It said, “I remember you.”</p><p>It said, “Even in pieces, I haven’t let go.”</p><p><br/></p><p>The small bird between them felt symbolic—like hope, or maybe a soul traveling between two hearts. Light, fragile, and yet somehow full of strength.</p><p><br/></p><p>I stared at that image longer than I expected to. Because in a world that often hides pain behind smiles and filters, this woman allowed her truth to be seen:</p><p>That you can love someone deeply… and still lose them.</p><p>That you can be separated from your child… and still carry them in every breath.</p><p>That even when life pulls you apart, love can hold the pieces together.</p><p><span style='background-color: transparent; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;'><br/></span></p><p><span style='background-color: transparent; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;'>I</span><span style='background-color: transparent; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;'> don’t know her name.</span></p><p><br/></p><p>But I won’t forget her.</p><p><br/></p>
The Woman in Pieces
By
Favour Egbegi
•
3 plays