How a rhino helped my mother find a new hobby

How my mother's memories from her youth led her to discover Diamond Painting.

My mother turned 65 this year and we decided that she would move in to live with us. With her health deteriorating badly over the last few months, we felt it would be best to have her close to us.

Although her house remains in the family, it needed to be emptied and tidied. While clearing out the attic, we came across many family treasures, but also some odds and ends that no one wanted or needed.

Where was it hiding?

One day I found a very old and rather battered-looking cuddly toy rhinoceros hidden in an old chest. I wondered who it had once belonged to. I couldn't remember my brothers playing with it, nor could I remember playing with it myself. Even the embroidered initials gave no indication of its first owner. Only one person would know, I thought.

So I simply took the rhino with me and drove home. When I got home, I forgot about it again and it wasn't until I took my mother to an appointment a few days later that she discovered the stuffed animal in the back seat of the car. She recognized it immediately and exclaimed: "Oh, Nasnas, where did you come from? Where have you been hiding all these years?"

Nasnas' story

And then she told me the story of Nasnas. He used to be her favorite toy and they were inseparable. He was her friend, her confidant and constant companion. My mother had been given him as a present on a trip to the zoo, where she had seen real rhinos for the first time, and as she couldn't say the whole word back then, the cuddly toy simply became Nasnas. Nasnas was the beginning of her fascination with rhinos, which has stayed with her all her life.

When she was 22, she went to a rhino sanctuary in Africa as a volunteer. I remember a picture of her kneeling proudly next to a baby rhino. Her young face was speckled with freckles, she was wearing a plaid shirt with a scarf tied on her head, and her blonde curls were hanging in her face. The little baby rhino had the same scarf as her! And his name was Nasnas.

When she came back, she was already engaged and soon afterwards I was born. With my mother's milk, I also absorbed her love for Africa's rhinos. Throughout my childhood, we visited zoos all over the country, she told us rhino bedtime stories and we read books about Africa together.

What helped my mother's health

A few days later, I found my mother in her office, apparently working on something. She was very absorbed in it. She had a glass of white wine on her desk, Chardonnay, her favorite wine. To my surprise, I spotted a drawn rhinoceros on the bottle label.

She looked very peaceful, so content and deep in thought. At first I didn't want to disturb her, but I was curious to see what she was doing, so I entered the room.

"What are you doing?" I asked her and she said that Nasnas had inspired her. She wanted her love of rhinos to find more of a place in her life again. When she stood up, she revealed a shimmering creation to me. It was a diamond painting of a rhino and it looked so real, both powerful and gentle at the same time. Together we put the finished painting on her office wall and have been enjoying her artwork ever since. My mother is now working on a new diamond painting. She has found a new hobby through Nasnas and it makes her happy and content, which also has a positive effect on her health.