Walking across the Graduation stage to receive her Master of Commerce in Accounting qualification carried a promise for Ms Thameenah Abrahams – one shaped by love, loss, and an unbreakable bond with her mother, to excel.
In January 2024, Abrahams began her master’s studies with focus and determination. Just months later, her world shifted. In July, her mother, Shamsijah Abrahams was diagnosed with dementia.
What followed was a year marked not only by academic pressure, but by the quiet, painful experience of watching someone she loved slowly fade.
“I completed my MCom while watching my mother gradually deteriorate,” she reflects. “It was an incredibly difficult and emotional experience.”
And yet, through that period of uncertainty and grief, there was also strength – a strength rooted in her mother’s enduring presence.
Even as dementia took its toll, her mother continued to show up in the ways she could. Through phone calls, through visits, through a quiet but constant belief in her daughter.
“That encouragement meant a great deal to me,” Abrahams says softly. “It’s something I carry with me.”
That support became her anchor. Alongside it, the MCom Accounting support group at UKZN offered a space to breathe, to process, and to keep going. It was here, among peers navigating similar academic demands, that she found the resilience to continue, even on the hardest days.
Then, on 13 April 2026, her mother passed away.
By that time, Abrahams had already taken the next step in her academic journey, enrolling for a PhD in Accounting. But the loss and the months leading up to it, left a deep mark.
“It was not easy to maintain focus and emotional balance,” she admits. “But her encouragement, together with the support structures around me, helped me continue.”
It is perhaps this intersection of personal experience and academic purpose that defines Abraham’s work.
Graduating, Abrahams’s research tackled a pressing issue facing the profession she cares deeply about: the decline of registered auditors in South Africa, and what it means for the future of assurance.
Her work is not just theoretical. It is grounded in a desire to contribute meaningfully to a profession built on trust.
“I hope my research contributes to more honest conversations and more effective action around the sustainability of the profession,” she explains. “It’s about helping regulators, professional bodies, and educators respond to the challenges facing auditing.”
For Abrahams, the stakes are clear. The health of the auditing profession is not only an industry concern, it is a public one.
“Auditing is closely tied to trust, accountability, and the credibility of financial information,” she says. “When the profession is under pressure, it affects businesses, investors, governance and confidence in the economy as a whole.”
It is this sense of responsibility that shapes her future path.
Now pursuing her PhD, she envisions a career that bridges academia and practice, one that combines teaching, research and mentorship, while remaining connected to the realities of the auditing profession.
“I’m interested in contributing through scholarship that is practically relevant and socially responsive,” she says.
But behind the academic accolades and professional ambition lies a deeply personal story, one of perseverance through grief, and of love that endured even in the face of loss.
“In many ways, my academic journey is tied to my mother’s strength,” she reflects. “Her encouragement, and the support I received, helped me continue through an incredibly difficult season.”
As she reflects on her journey, her words carry both quiet strength and profound meaning.
“My academic journey has been one of persistence, purpose, and growth,” she says. “Through this MCom, I explored a pressing issue facing the profession I care deeply about. My hope is that this work contributes, even in a small way, to strengthening the future of auditing, accountability, and public trust in our country.”
This graduation for Abrahams, was more than a moment, it is a tribute.
Words: Oliver Meth
Photograph: Sethu Dlamini