Bolt from the Blue
One day, I sent my youngest son, Phumie, to the shop to buy some bread and sugar. As he was walking back through the long grass, it started to rain. Soon, there was a thunderstorm. He was struck by a bolt of lightning. He was 18.
People ran to my house afterwards and said they had seen him running, and saw him fall down. ‘Oh Goldie, I am so sorry,’ they said. ‘He is there, on the hill.’ When we got to him, he was dead already. He must have died instantly.
There is always the danger of being struck by lightning in summer in the Eastern Cape. Even now, when I went back in March, I heard it had happened to a few people. It is something we live with. But you can never be prepared for that in your own family. Death may be common, but you never get used to it.
Starting to Dream Again
After two of my children died of HIV/Aids, I said, 'Why me, all the time? Why is it that every two years, one of my children must die? Why me?' I was brought up very strictly, always doing the right thing, and could not see why all this sadness should come to me. In my own heart I began to blame my parents, because I had not wanted to marry in the first place.
I had imagined that I would be a nurse or teach in a school, but my husband did not allow it. So I would think, 'Now I've got children with this husband and they are dying. What is the point of it all?' Even while I was experiencing all this confusion, I knew that my husband was a good man. He, too, was devastated that his children were dying.
But the deaths hit me particularly badly. I stayed at home all day, just sitting and thinking, stuck in my grief. I couldn't bear the thought of food. I didn't want to see other people. I would do my washing and clean my house and the yard, but when I finished my work, I just went inside and lay down. I knew that my head was not right.
Suddenly, I realised something had to change. 'What am I doing, just sitting here alone all day, doing nothing?' I asked myself. 'I can't carry on like this. I must go back to Cape Town to be with my husband. We must talk together and decide what to do.’ I got lost in the dream of starting my own business and started to feel better. So I went back to Cape Town, asked Otto to buy me a more modern sewing machine and started the business I had begun to dream about.
Healing Together
On most evenings, we read the Bible together. The verse that comforted us the most was by the Apostle Timothy, where he says something like, 'In the long run, when Jesus is coming, the children won't hear. There will be a lot of dying.
People will love money.' We thought, 'Why are we thinking all these bad things when God gave us a Bible, which is not just an ordinary book? It was written by the prophets. And all the things that are happening are written in the Bible.' We started to feel much happier. I continued with my sewing, crocheting and knitting. My grief abated.
By Jo-Anne Smetherham