won't ever happen

We found a video clip on an old phone of Frieda, soft-faced and blonde curls, age 6, her voice so different, thicker - pre-tonsillectomy -  'I pinkie swear I'll never twerk.'

Stella, regularly, 'I'll never leave home, I'll live with you until I die Mummy. Or until you die, whichever happens first.' Her eyes become solemn.
She thinks a lot about death this one.

Overheard today: 'I will never, ever drink coffee.'

We've thought for months: 'Trump will never become president.'

hot, okay ... warm, mama

The weather's been atrocious this last week or so. Real big winter storms with gale-force winds and rain squalls and ... hail!

It's impossible to relish winter in South Africa. Impossible for me anyway. All those 'winter delights' like open fires and red wine and hot chocolate and soup are tainted with thoughts of flooded shacks and cold children and desperate people.

I'm not a winter fan, I feel a growing dread as the nights draw in, but I can only imagine the fear of facing these harsh conditions completely exposed.

'The children, the children' someone tweeted this week, in a conversation about the weather and the homeless. But to be honest it's not the children who first break my heart.
It's the thought of the mothers, and their anguish at not being able to keep their kids warm and dry. I can't even go there, the guilt and pain and FURY of being unable to mother, due to circumstances so out of one's own control.

I met a young American girl this week, but from her name I could tell there was a connection to Africa. She said something about 'not having been back very often' and I asked her where she was originally from.
'Rwanda,' she said, 'we left when I was five.'
'1994?' I asked, and she nodded.
Instantly my eyeballs prickled, not at the thought of a five year old girl dislocated from her home, but at the thought of her mother, fleeing to save her children's lives.

Having my own children hasn't really made me feel differently about children, but becoming a mother has certainly made me feel for mothers, all mothers, the world over. And weeks like this make me realise anew that I have it so easy.

a little lunchtime trolling

The troll, in this case, being me.

troll

One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument

The National Elections this last week have been an emotional time for the Nation. Lots of nervous energy has been spent on speculation and optimism, and then disappointment when the results have not been as different as many had hoped.

The problem with being a Nation that once witnessed a miracle is that we forever maintain the hope we'll see one again. Does one get more than one miracle in a life time? I'd tend to say we are amazingly blessed to have witnessed one, and such a magnificent one at that.

I'd also tend to say that anyone who thought the ANC would fall, or even significantly shift, during this election is a fool. I don't get the 'So crushed #fml #sadforSouthAfrica' status updates I've seen around the interwebs.

I ALSO think that all those calling ANC voters 'idiots' (and much worse), are vile, bigoted sanctimonious twits.

A Twitter friend yesterday expressed this far more eloquently than I:

Amen Karen.

So THEN, I stumbled across this little corner of the internet, heavily populated by aforementioned vile twits, mainly of the expat variety, bitching and moaning at this post about their votes 'not being counted' and I just .... couldn't help myself. 

(Screenshots because I'm not tainting my blog with a live link).

Obviously this wasn't the popular approach.

Luckily I'm not going to 'loose' any sleep over this.

And then of course someone had to play this card ... so cute ...

Ah, SO much fun to while away a lunch break which I couldn't really afford to take but you know, when a girl's got to troll a girl's got to troll!

Viva South Africa Viva!

gone too soon

Last Thursday I celebrated 22 years with my husband. On that same afternoon a friend lost hers in a light plane crash.

Devastating. A word I've thought, said, typed more often since then I probably ever have. 

Devastating.

I've been struggling so much with this one. We don’t know them that well, but the time we've spent with them my husband and I felt such a connection, a meeting of like-minded souls which has become very rare as we've gotten older. I know they felt it too.

If we’d lived closer I've no doubt we would be close friends. When we have seen each it’s always been warm and empathetic. We laugh at the same things.

They have two young children. We have two young children. The horror of having to guide your children through the loss of a parent as you suffer your own inconsolable grief is terrifying.

They were soul mates. We are soul mates. We both think they were one of very few couples we've met whose relationship seemed to operate similar to ours. They were partners. We are partners. They loved each other dearly. We love each other dearly. The reality that such a treasured person can be taken from you is sobering and horrific.

Devastating.

And also, what the actual FUCK?

I will never understand how a man – a warm, compassionate, loved, positive, energetic man, a father and a husband – gets whipped away on a sunny afternoon while hundreds of wife-beating, double-crossing scum live long into old age.

If I was religious I could put it down to ‘God’s plan’, which I should not question, just ‘trust’. This may be why I’m not religious.

But I am spiritual (it’s possible, really it is), and I have been thinking a lot these last few days about destiny and fate.

Was it always his destiny, while building a life, a marriage, fathering and parenting two children, making plans, hoping, dreaming, that he would leave it all too soon, too soon for anyone?

Was it always her fate to be a young widow?

And while I’m at it, was it coincidence that two of their dearest friends were planning to visit them this last weekend, so that they were the first to arrive after she got the news? There to guide her through that first surreal, unimaginable 48 hours?

I don’t know the answers to any of this. All I know is there is a patch on my heart rubbed raw for her, for her children. My tears are but a drop in the ocean of their grief.

Devastating.

27 June 2008

Frieda was just one. She and I had spent the afternoon at a friend's. I remember I'd had more than one gin and tonic. It was Friday and it felt that way.

We got home a little late for starting supper etc, and swooped straight through the house to the kitchen. I put Frieda in her high chair and started scrabbling for something to feed her.

The alarm had been on when we'd arrived, I'd disarmed it before we entered. The study door was closed but that didn't strike me as odd, we often closed it so Frieda wouldn't toddle in there unsupervised.

It was only when I tried to open the back door, and couldn't, that I realised the broom cupboard which stood just outside it was on its side. Then I saw all the broken glass and went cold.
Where they still here?

I grabbed Frieda and my phone and walked straight out of the house again. Stood in the bitter wind phoning my husband and the security company. I wrapped her close in my big jersey, my heart thudding through us both.

Turns out the burglar was long gone. He'd smashed the solid pane of the study window (having realised that the alarm worked with contact points on all the opening windows and doors), closed the door to the study and helped himself to everything in there - 2 laptops, a tablet, a bike jacket, a mobile phone, some cash etc.

A bloody fingerprint stained the strip plug he'd unplugged my laptop from.
I am so grateful I'd copied the photos of Frieda's 1st birthday to a flash drive to share with a friend.
He left a can of mace spray behind.
I'm so grateful we came home when we did.

He left some other fingerprints too. And the reason why I tell this story now is that tomorrow I go to court to bear witness against him. 5 years and another dozen charges later they've got him, and although I don't really see the worth of my testimony - I can't add anything to the original police report, I never saw him - I'll do what I can to help find him guilty.

We were 'lucky' to have only been burgled once in all the years we lived in Observatory. (Actually we were broken into twice but the other time the perp only got into our garden shed and took a dump - I was away working on a shoot so I guess that time just I was lucky!)

But I don't feel particularly lucky now as I have to leave home in the dark and rain tomorrow to spend the morning on a cold, hard bench in the unsavoury environment of the Cape High Court.
But Justice must be served right?