Already a Year

I cannot believe it has already been a whole year since my mom has been gone, some days like today are honestly harder than others.

Through this experience i have realized that when someone you love dies it seems as if time in itself stands still. For me silence and a quite sadness descended as i longed for another day and time for one more conversation. It is not easy to understand why God chose to have them leave this earth before we were ready to say goodbye.

Little by little, during this time i have begun to remember that my mom is not just died or gone. She lived and her life gave those around her including me beautiful memories and valuable lessons that we will always have. So today i will grieve that i lost a mother who i dearly miss and the world has lost such an amazing women.

In the same breathe i will also spend it celebrating her life, her sense of humility and her fighting spirit; i will take strength from the fact that i had her for so long before God called her home.

Depending on religious belief whether she is a star in the sky or an angel in heaven, she still remains out there somewhere watching over all those she loves.

At the Gates of the Year

I have been trying to put my year in words but have failed miserably to capture it all until i found the poem below by Minnie Louise Haskins (1875-1957):

GOD KNOWS 

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

So heart be still:
What need our little life
Our human life to know,
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife
Of things both high and low,
God hideth His intention.

God knows. His will
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; In Him,
All time hath full provision.

Then rest: until
God moves to lift the veil
From our impatient eyes,
When, as the sweeter features
Of Life’s stern face we hail,
Fair beyond all surmise
God’s thought around His creatures
Our mind shall fill.

So as my journey into 2014 begins, i am humbled by the year i leave behind.  It has been a year that has seen me shed more tears than laughter, a year that has taught me great lessons on loss, life and faith. A year of revelations and one of sincere appreciation for things like life and death.

I don't know what this new year holds but God knows!

Beyond the Noise

I do not care how many government officials and “important people” try and deny it; RAPE is a real problem in this country and the women who have been placed in that position NEVER forget it or get over it.

Statistics vary and sadly many cases are not reported but most agree that South Africa is the rape capital of the world. Police crime statistics released in September 2012 state that in 2011/2012 there were a total of 9 193 sexual offences reported to the South African Police Services (SAPS) in the Western Cape, almost 27 cases per day.

One Medical Research Council study among men from the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal showed a devastatingly casual familiarity with rape – more than 25% of the men questioned admitted to raping someone. A poll in 1999 among 1500 schoolboys in Soweto showed most thought "jackrolling", or gang rape, was "fun". 

I am no expert but when we have a 13 year old in school being raped, stabbed and left for dead we know we have a problem that is bigger than we think. We know we have entered questioning times when we have victims like Anene Booysen whose tragedies are sensationalised by political parties but forgotten by communities.

With less than 10 percent of cases resulting in conviction the victims are being made to feel like perpetrators because of the length of the skirts they wear, the pictures they might have taken or the party they attended. 

Enough is enough, the time has come for us to start giving a voice to the voiceless victims in this country!

In Life and in Death: Letter to my MOM

Thank you mom for always attempting to keep me sane and protected from some of the ills in this world. For teaching me kindness, showing me how to care and passing on your selective patience. You have looked out  for me even when I didn't think I needed it and let me learn by making my own mistakes.

Thank you mom for always being there; for waiting up and worrying, for the late night lectures and the early morning cups of coffee while you laughed with me and at times also at me.

It saddens me to think that my future son or daughter will never know your unconditional kind of love, he/she will never get to call you "Ma" or "Granny". Will never have you in there corner and will never know your silent wisdom, i only hope i can stick up for them and encourage them with half as much passion as you have done for me through the years.

Thank you mom for teaching me to be honest, courteous, appreciative and loving.
Thank you for trying to teach me to be neat and tidy, even though we both know it didn't work so well.
Thank you for teaching me to try to see the best in people, even if it meant looking deeper than just the surface.

Your lessons on humility, fighting fair and conflict has been instilled so deep in my being that i would not be me with out them, so thank you for taking the time over the years to nurture my open mind and listen to my theories on everything from world peace to genocide.

Thank you mom for instilling in me a love for travel, books, flowers, photography and food. How i will miss the back rubs, talks, stories and reminders that i can do anything i set my mind to.

"A mother is she who can take the place of all others,but whose place no one else can take." Author Unknown

Remembering...

My uncle was a remarkable man, he lived his life with such vigour and ease. He was a silent man most of the time yet when he walked into a room you would know that he is there.

He was sometimes hard headed and cocky but he loved being the only uncle we had; he relished being the big brother to his 4 bossy sisters (my mom and aunts), a husband and a father to his sons. As a teenager he use to knock down my room door just to check if i am alive, he is one of the few that never saw my eccentric nature as weird. He literally just let me go with it and i loved him dearly for that.

Knowing his really gone is harder than we all thought it would be, even though we have had months to prepare for it and say our "goodbyes" there still feels like a decade has been left unsaid.

His wife will miss him most as she watches their grand kids grow up and their sons marry off and start their own lives. My mom and her sisters will also miss their steadfast brother, even though they have years of memories he won't be a phone call away anymore. He won't be there anymore.

In all this sadness i take heart in knowing that God called him home at the right time and He has my uncle safely nestled against His side watching us all as we continue to soldier on. I pray his soul has found peace and that he knows he was loved and will always be missed.

“It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” ― Rose Kennedy

In loving memory of my Uncle Greg
26 January 2013

A little perspective

There is nothing like the near death of someone that you love to give you a little perspective on life and how you live it.

For the last month and a half my mom has been in and out of the doctors office, been put on various treatments and now has a bed in a NO VISITORS ward while they try and find an antibiotic that agrees with her body and will reduce the size of her liver.

I can't imagine how scary it all must be for a women like her who has raised 3 kids, seen 4 grandchildren and a great grandchild into this world (and all the noise it brings) to be so isolated from home. My mom is a home body, give her time in her yard and the company of any one of her sisters and she is in her element.

For me its a different kind of scary because i have never been faced with the thought of loosing my mom until now, i know she won't live forever but i at least hope she will be around to spend a few Christmas's at my house and help to usher my kids into the world so they are as fortunate as my nieces and nephew to call her theirs. Its scary to think how short life is and how we take the time for granted because we think we have plenty of it left, when in essence we don't have much.

I haven't been to see her yet; if i am honest i have just not had the heart to get on a plane and be there among my siblings and to visit her in a hospital of all places. She also tells me it's not necessary that i rush home because she is fine but i know that at the moment she is not fine, so i feel a bit like a bad daughter for not being strong enough to be there alone and be faced with the reality that time might run out sooner than i thought.

So with fear and all i have booked my tickets and gotten the time off work to go home; i am unsure of what to expect, unsure of what my arrival will be greeted with but i look forward to seeing my mother and having her enlighten me with quirky stories and lectures of hospitals and faith.