women Archives | A Million Beautiful Pieces

Yes, I’ve entered Mrs South Africa. No, I am not having a mid-life crisis or a re-visit to my years when I was a girl that dabbled a little in modelling.

I am in fact having a reawakening; a renewal if you will. I will be forty this year and I have spent all my adult life dedicated to giving my daughter Savannah, who is a person with special needs, a life of dignity and value while building our family.

I have raised my second daughter, Talisa with the understanding that life is not always fair but you still have to be fair.

Over the years Talisa watched me patiently teach her sister a great many lessons. Some of which Savannah grasped and other lessons she may never learn.

Talisa understands the fight of a mother who didn’t quit. She knows STRONG because she is raised by a strong woman and is a sibling to a strong woman.

This year Talisa will also know that strength is also Beautiful not only tired. Strength is not only long suffering but it is also Joyful. Strength is not only the ability to keep going when life doesn’t go your way but it is also the ability to do it with Grace.

Being a mother to a child with special needs already made me a strong and confident woman but the chance to compete in the Tammy Taylor Mrs South Africa Women Empowerment programme makes me a strong and powerful woman with a cause beyond my community.

My community are the mothers who are caring for adult children. Those mothers who quit careers to become carers. Or who are working hard to provide for their families while coping with facing forever with an adult who will never be able to care for themselves. They are the woman who are left behind (posted on, 15 February 2018 http://amillionbeautifulpieces.co.za/2018/02/15/sue-robins-left-behind/).

My community are the mothers who make quiet sacrifices yet continue to uplift their communities. The mothers who continously fight for their child’s right to dignity and quality of life and do it without the need for recognition or being hailed as a hero. The mothers whose lives are bound to their child with special needs in ways no one else will understand, and they accept that no one ever will. Yet everyday they rise to do it all again.

For my community, and proudly as Talisa’s mother, I am excited to join with the 99 other #bonfide women as we jointly pursue the crown in honour of all women. Sounds strange doesn’t it, but it is what only women can do… Work together even though we already know there will be one winner. As women, we understand that often in life it is the journey that is often the prize, not the destination. However, the destination is a lovely reward.

For Talisa, I hope this year you will learn that being a woman is fun and exhilarating. I hope that as I put myself first, you too will learn to do the same.

For Savannah I hope as I pursue a dream, you will find your motivation again. Life is hardest on you but you are by far the strongest woman I know. I promised you “I would not change you for the world, I’d change the world for you” (author unknown), and I will always hold true to that.

For my readers, I hope you stay with me on this journey as I rediscover the joys of being a woman who already has the heart of a warrior.

Why? Because women need women, and for once I need to do something that doesn’t need reason or logic. I still get the opportunity to share myself in the way that is true to who I am, by inspiring and working alongside others for a cause.

I need you to please follow me and interact with me on the following platforms: To vote for me: Annelize I’ll add this later at my laptop.

To vote for me:

Please like the Mrs South Africa Facebook Page
Like/love my picture on their page
SMS “SABC3 DESIRAE PILLAY” to 35959

All the votes count towards getting into the top 25 in June 2018.

Thank you for following me on this journey and for your support.

#thisisme

Images credit: Brendan Croft & Tammy Taylor Mrs South Africa.

As a woman raising women and being married to a husband who believes I can do anything; our family are always aware of the gender inequality in society.

Then I am aware of the inequality in how people with disabilities are treated.

When you mix all that together, I am living the truth of the inequality against mothers like me. Women who are expected to be Super Woman in all areas of our lives while maintaining an income.

Currently I am struggling to find the right care for Savannah while I maintain a job. I have to work so we can provide everything our family needs. The notion of giving it all up and staying at home to take care of her full time sounds so heroic to many people but it is also folly for many families like us. Medicine and therapy costs us quite a lot of our income every month. We pay above medical aid rates for doctors and medical aid doesn’t cover everything that Savannah needs. Now that she is over twenty one years old, we are charged more by our medical aid company.

Please note that we live in South Africa and our government only provides a minimum social grant for people with disabilities that in our case will only cover the cost of one of Savannah’s medicines. We do not have suitable social programmes to assist families like ours in our country and when they do exist; corruption is rife.

So long story short… I have to work. And while my employers are the exception who are flexible and accommodating, being a mother to a child with a disability means I can’t plan for a career because I don’t know what bend Savannah’s life will take. I am mom… I have to be there for all of those bends.

If you believe in equality and in raising the stature of women in society, then please read this article by Sue Robins and add mothers like us to your cause.

We cannot only take care off a few demographics of women in society and leave the rest behind. A woman’s fight is every WOMEN’s fight.

We are the mothers who feminism – and the world – has left behind.