The thought that Zephany Nurse is not in her life makes her biological mother Celeste cry almost every night, she told Heart FM this week.

“It hurts as a mom because biologically she is my daughter. But in the space of time now, Zephany knows me as a friend and for now it’s going to be: I am your friend,” she told host Aden Thomas in an emotional conversation broadcast on Tuesday morning.

“It’s not easy. I mean, I cry about it almost every night and pray to God but I am not going to force the issue.”

She said she would wait on God and until the day Zephany was ready.

“Because I know, it’s not going to be long, she is going to come to me, or she is going to call me or send me a message [saying] ‘Mommy I need you’.”

The Western Cape High Court last week convicted a 51-year-old woman of kidnapping, fraud, and contravening the Children’s Act. She was expected to be sentenced at the end of May.

Celeste told Thomas that it made it much easier knowing her daughter had been well taken care of and was not abused.

“She is in a warm environment with her other dad at the moment so I know she will be safe with him.”

She knew her daughter was going through a very “traumatised, devastating time” and was probably questioning who she could trust.

“There is no trust there anymore. It’s been taken away because everything that she knew was a lie.”

Zephany was apparently seeing a psychologist every two or three days but Celeste felt that sometimes therapy did not even help.

Thomas asked how she, as a mother, suppressed the natural instinct to fling her arms around her daughter and tell her everything would be okay.

“I just want to hold her,” was all she managed to say before breaking down in sobs in the studio.

After taking some time to compose herself, she said she respected Zephany’s choices.

“I wasn’t in her life for 17 or 18 years so if she decides, ‘I don’t want to see you now’, I have to live with that. There is nothing that I can do.”

She revealed that she often sent her daughter text messages to ask how she was doing. She also offered an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on.

“Whenever she feels she is ready, I am here for her.”

[Source: News24]