LIVIA'S BOOKLET

In spired by Psalm 40 He gave me a chapter to sing and I sang, though my voice was a whisper, though my heart was a wilderness, though the words on my lips were fighting the tears in my eyes. He gave me Psalm 40, and I wondered how a woman standing in the middle of a pit could possibly sing about deliverance. For I, too, had been waiting. Waiting for a door to open that would not ask me to knock twice. Waiting for the kind of breakthrough that would make sense of all my breaking. Waiting for the morning to look different from the night before. I had prayed until my words grew tired, knelt until my knees knew the floor, and held on to promises with hands that were beginning to tremble. Lord, I have dreams that are growing impatient. There are versions of me I have not yet had the money to become, books I have not yet had the courage to open, and roads I have not yet had the strength to travel. There are bills that do not understand prayer, needs that cannot be postponed until a miracle,...

  NOBODY CAME TO MY FUNERAL . Not because the earth had swallowed my name, nor because the heavens had forgotten my address, but because I had spent a lifetime dying in places where everybody could see me and nobody thought to ask if I was all right. I died in conversations where my words were met with silence. I died at tables where I served everyone but myself. I died in the arms of people who held my body but never bothered to learn the language of my heart. And yet, I lived. God, how desperately I lived. I laughed with a mouth full of sorrow, wore courage like a Sunday dress, and told the world, "I am fine," because I had learnt that honesty was an inconvenience to people who only loved me when I was easy to love. I became everyone's shelter while praying for somewhere to rest. I learnt to listen to everybody's storms while drowning in my own. And whenever my soul grew tired, I apologised for being human. Nobody noticed the funeral. There were no flowers, ...

The pink dress remained in her wardrobe long after she stopped wearing it. It hung between a black dress she wore to funerals and a blue one she once wore to her best friend's graduation. She had bought it on an ordinary Tuesday. There had been nothing remarkable about that day. The sun was too hot. The market was crowded. Someone had overcharged her for tomatoes. A child was crying beside a woman selling second-hand clothes. She had argued with the tailor over a missing button and laughed with her sister on the way home. It was just an ordinary Tuesday. She did not know then that ordinary days were treasures. She wore the pink dress more than thrice. Once to church, once to the lake and once to a wedding. Once to a family gathering where she ate too much rice and laughed until her stomach hurt. Then she stopped wearing it. Not because she stopped liking pink. Because one morning, while dressing, her fingers found something that wasn't supposed to be there. She stood in front o...

  (A short story for Blood Cancer Awareness Month) The first thing Lhane noticed was how tired he had become. Not the ordinary tiredness that followed a long day at work, but the kind that settled into his bones and made even small things feel unnecessarily heavy. He stopped taking the stairs. He slept longer. He began turning down invitations because he simply did not have the energy to explain why he was always tired. Kazina noticed before he did. She noticed the way he held his body when he thought she wasn't looking. She noticed how often he pressed his hand against his chest. She noticed the silence between his words. "Something isn't right," she told him one evening. Lhane smiled. "You worry too much." "I know," she replied. "But this time, let me." A few weeks later, the doctors gave them a diagnosis neither of them was prepared to hear. Blood cancer. The word seemed too large for the small consultation room. Lhane stared at the fl...

(A prose piece for World Heart Day) We speak about the heart as though it only knows how to beat. But the heart carries more than blood. We ask it to carry grief without breaking. Love without becoming foolish. Fear without becoming weak. Disappointment without becoming bitter. We ask it to keep going through things we sometimes don't even have the courage to name. And yet, for all the poetry we give the heart, we sometimes forget that it is also an organ that needs our care. We remember it when something goes wrong. We remember the importance of movement after we have spent years being inactive. We remember what we eat after the doctor tells us to be careful. We remember our blood pressure when the numbers become frightening. We remember that smoking, excessive alcohol use, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity and other risk factors can quietly increase the burden placed on our cardiovascular health. Perhaps caring for the heart should begin before it has to ask for our attention....

  (A poem for World Alzheimer's Day) There comes a quiet kind of forgetting that does not ask permission. It enters through little doors— a name misplaced, a familiar road suddenly unfamiliar, a question asked twice before the first answer has settled. At first, we laugh gently. We say, "You are getting old." We find the missing keys and place them in waiting hands, never imagining that one day the keys will not be the thing that is lost. Then slowly, the house begins to change. Photographs remain on the walls, but the faces inside them become difficult to name. Yesterday folds into today. Today slips quietly toward somewhere we cannot follow. And there is a particular sorrow in being remembered only in pieces. A daughter becomes the kind woman who visits. A husband becomes a familiar stranger. A childhood home becomes a room with beautiful curtains and no history. Still, love does not always require memory. Sometimes it is found in the hand that reaches back when yours r...

(A prose piece for World Suicide Prevention Day) There are people who become very good at saying, "I'm fine." They say it at work. They say it at home. They say it when someone asks them how they are doing and they know the person is already walking away before the answer has finished leaving their mouth. "I'm fine." Sometimes those two words are simply the truth. And sometimes they are a curtain. Behind them may be exhaustion. Grief. Loneliness. Shame. Financial pressure. Relationship problems. Trauma. Depression. Fear. A feeling that life has become too heavy to carry. Not everyone who is struggling looks broken. Some people continue going to work. They answer messages. They laugh with friends. They post photographs. They take care of children. They show up for everyone else while quietly wondering how much longer they can keep showing up for themselves. That is why suicide prevention belongs to all of us. Not because we can always see the signs. We can...

  (A short story for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month) Mirembe was seven years old when he decided that hospitals were too white. He told his mother they needed more colour. "Even the walls look tired," he whispered. His mother laughed for the first time in days. She had forgotten what his laughter sounded like. Mirembe had been diagnosed with cancer months earlier. Since then, their lives had become a collection of hospital appointments, medicines, blood tests and long afternoons waiting for doctors. But Mirembe remained Mirembe. He still asked too many questions. He still wanted to know why clouds moved. He still believed that every nurse secretly had a favourite child. And every night, before sleeping, he prayed. "God, please let me wake up tomorrow." His mother once asked him why he prayed such a simple prayer. He shrugged. "Because tomorrow might be a good day." She turned away so he would not see her cry. Children should be thinking about school. Abo...

  Meet Livia_writes ✍🏾🇲🇼 — The Pen, The Passion, The Power Behind the Words Livia_writes✍🏾, a proud Malawian, passionate bibliophile, writer, literary enthusiast, and one of the long-standing faces of The Reading Culture Union:Creative Minds Group, where she has been an active member since 2014. For the past 12 years, Livia has not merely belonged to the Union—she has shown up for it. She has contributed to its growth, vibrancy and expansion, bringing with her an infectious love for books, words, people and the beautiful communities that literature creates. Friendly. Outgoing. Warm. Bold. Expressive. Curious. Adventurous. Unapologetically creative. A natural conversationalist. A lover of stories and a storyteller in her own right. A community builder. A literary cheerleader. A fierce advocate for reading. And, perhaps most importantly, a woman who genuinely believes that words can change people. Livia is an influencer of books and reading culture, constantly encouraging people ...

  For International Overdose Awareness Day🎗 There is a temptation to make an overdose story simple. To say someone made bad choices. To say they should have known better. To say their family should have seen it coming. To reduce a human life to the substance that eventually took control of it. But human beings are rarely that simple. Behind addiction there may be grief that was never addressed, trauma that was never treated, loneliness that became unbearable, mental distress hidden behind ordinary conversations, pressure, poverty, dependency, or simply a vulnerability that no one knew how to recognise. None of these things make every decision harmless. But understanding is not the same as excusing. And compassion is not the same as approval. Overdose can happen when a person's body is overwhelmed by a substance or combination of substances. Sometimes a person knows exactly what they are taking. Sometimes they do not know what is in it. Sometimes tolerance has changed. Sometimes su...

  I used to think change would announce itself. I imagined there would be a morning when I would wake up and suddenly understand that I had entered a new chapter. Perhaps there would be a sign. A door closing loudly behind me. A beautiful sunrise. Some unmistakable moment that would tell me, You are no longer who you used to be. But life rarely changes so dramatically. Sometimes, transformation happens quietly. It happens in the day you stop explaining yourself to people who have already decided to misunderstand you. In the moment you realise that not every unanswered message requires another message. In the afternoon when you choose peace over proving your worth. In the evening when you look back at something that once broke you and realise it no longer has the same power. You simply become different. Not overnight. Not perfectly. But gradually. There are versions of ourselves we have to mourn before we can become someone new. The woman who stayed too long. The man who kept hoping...