23 March 2018… The day we gained the fussiest of angels, affectionately known as Bra Paul. This was an icy cold day for us.

29 September 2018… The day my remaining earth angel came out of mourning, after we lost my dad, her husband, 6 months prior. I should say it is when OUR mourning period ended, but this symbolised the opposite, at least for me.

As part of culture and tradition, when a family member passes on, we mourn by observing certain decorum. My dad was not a big fan of widows wearing all black and not being allowed in certain spaces while mourning, so when he transitioned I found myself questioning if we would mourn him the traditional way, or do it our own way. My dad was a traditionalist but he was also a bit of a rebel at heart so he did not always follow “rules”.

My mom, affectionately known as Sis B, decided to honour tradition and observed 6 months of mourning. Over these 6 months, she wore only brown (instead of black), covered her hair 24/7, rarely left the house, and when she did, she was home before sunset. Over these 6 months, she could not set foot in other people’s homes. This is the norm when one loses a husband. Over this period, I struggled with the fact that we both lived in the same house, she had lost a husband and I had lost a father, but our everyday experience was different because she was the only one whose clothes announced her loss and heartbreak, and she wore her heartbreak, every day, for 6 months. I, on the other hand, only had to cover my hair, and be home before sunset, and that was only for 2 months. My mom made it a point of telling me that it was bad enough to have lost my dad; she did not want my social life to be yet another thing I no longer had. She encouraged me to leave the house and spend time people I loved, but I had anxiety about leaving my mom alone so I mainly stayed indoors. That obviously led to a bit of cabin fever because we had both been homebound long before my dad even left us. There were months, before he was hospitalised, when we both rarely left the house because my dad could not move much on his own. We were both not physically strong enough to move him alone, so we needed to be home together, to share the load. In those months, if I did leave the house, it was mainly around 8pm, after my dad had eaten and was asleep. Once he was asleep, “normal” life could resume, although there was very little that felt normal over that period.

10 April 2018… My good friend Lloyd’s birthday.
At the time, Lloyd lived 5 minutes from our house and my mom said I should go celebrate with him because he was hosting an intimate birthday dinner at his house. I arrived and 2 minutes later, his mom left the house. What I did not know in that moment was that she decided to go to my house to keep my mom company while I was at her house celebrating with her son. One day I will write about the angels God placed in our lives and how they (sometimes silently) cushioned our blow (in BIG ways). I had lost my dad two weeks prior but I was able to enjoy a night of laughter as we celebrated Lloyd’s birthday.

The surprising thing is after my dad transitioned, I was not as grief-stricken as I had expected I would be. I could still laugh and find joy in simple things. Someone commented on how I seemed to have more life and energy after burying my dad. He was comparing the low energy I had when my dad was in hospital to how my energy registered after we had buried my dad. He expected this heaviness in me but was surprised that my energy was different. I explained that I had cried myself to sleep for so many nights while my dad was in hospital that I was convinced I had used up all my tears over that period.

I was convinced that I had mourned my dad’s passing, even before he left us. There is a particular week that was extremely hard for us as a family while my dad was still in hospital. My mom and I arrived at the hospital for the 11 AM visit and the nurses had a different energy about them. I left my dad’s room to go to the coffee shop to order food and one of the nurses pulled me into one of the other rooms. She looked scared and sad so I knew this was not good. She explained that my dad had deteriorated at a rate she had never experienced before so she wanted to encourage me to spend as much time with him as possible because we did not have much time left with him. I called my brother and as soon as he answered, I broke down while trying to relay the nurse’s message. He was at work at the time and he applied for leave, starting from that same day, so he left work early. We were all a mess over the days that followed. My dad could not speak, smile, or eat. All he did was moan from the pain and stare at us. He was shivering but was running a hectic fever and the doctors and nurses said he could not be under blankets because it would make his temperate spike even further. His fever forced them to stop his treatment because they now had to stabilise him before pumping him with heavy meds. On one of the days, I told my mom that I understood what the nurses said. I really did… HOWEVER, he was MY dad, NOT THEIRS! It was breaking my heart to watch him shiver, so I covered him up! He could not speak, nor smile, but I saw him thank me with his eyes. My dad’s eyes always expressed how he was feeling; he had always spoken mostly with his eyes, even before he was sick. I already understood this language, so I also smiled back with my eyes. We left and I cried all night. I had many nights like this one over the time he was in hospital but this week was particularly hard! After this, and many other difficult days I watched my dad endure heart-breaking pain in hospital. Weighing in the ocean of the tears I cried the night before we buried him, I thought I had cried enough for the coming few years.

01 June 2018… Dinner with cupcake.
I was officially free to be out at night and wear my hair out. I had lived in a cocoon for longer than the period my dad had been gone for, so it felt liberating to go out for dinner and not have my hair covered. However, this dinner date was about more than just being able to wear my hair out and be out at night. I was relieved that, at least for a few hours, I was not “Neo who had recently lost her dad”. I was out at a place I had never been to and the only person who knew of my heartache was cupcake, no one else. You see, before this night, I was always surrounded by people who knew my pain. As comforting as it is to be surrounded by people who lovingly want to cushion your heart, I was also exhausted from all the conversations about my loss and heartache. I had turned into “the chick who lost her dad” and not (plain) “Neo”. On this night, my 1st proper night out, I met the person who would officially ask me to be his girlfriend a month and a bit later. The interesting part is one of the first conversations we had after he joined our table was about losing a loved one (I did not start that conversation), and he shared that he had lost his dad many years ago. I kept quiet about my very recent loss because I was out for dinner to escape my pain, not to revisit it over cocktails. The conversation got lighter and when we parted ways, he took my number. Although this piece is not about a love interest who is no longer in my life, I would do my journey a great injustice if I did not mention him.

We all have a formula we follow in romantic relationships. My dating formula has always been that if I do not get excited from the first one on one conversation we have, I do not bother giving you a chance. If I had followed the same formula I have always applied to choosing a boyfriend, this person would not have scored my number, or a first (…even second) date. In fact, he would not have made it to boyfriend status! He looked nothing like anyone I had dated (or even liked) before; sounded like nobody I had dated before, and was the first bad first date to end up becoming a boyfriend! His energy was also very different to what I usually go for but I was pleasantly surprised at how “present” he was in all my interactions with him so; he won me over and I eventually agreed to be his girlfriend.

Fast forward to 29 September 2018… The day my mom would officially come out of mourning.
I was super anxious in the week leading up to this big day but I did not understand why I was feeling anxious instead of excited. The end of mourning requires a cleansing and because I am my mom’s only daughter, we had to be cleansed together. It was an emotionally overwhelming day. I remember so much detail about a certain moment I shared with my mom, so much so that it feels as though it happened just the other day.
My mom and I are in the bedroom at her home (where she grew up). We are each standing in a plastic bathtub next to each other and we need to cleanse ourselves. The bathtubs are tiny so we cannot sit down. We have to do this standing up. I cannot wash my back standing up; neither can my mom, so we decide to wash each other’s back to “remove the pain and darkness”. I hear and feel my mom exhale the pain as I wash her back. The weight is being lifted off (not just) her shoulders (but her spirit too). When it is her turn to wash my back, I feel the opposite. I hear and feel myself inhale the pain as she washes my back. The weight is being piled on (not just) my shoulders (but my spirit too). With each wipe, I am now filling up with grief.

I did not process it in that instant but my spirit knew I was now officially in mourning.

My soul was weeping!

The thing about Sis B and I is we are overly protective of each other. In the 6 months of her official mourning, my focus had (unconsciously) been on making sure she was Ok. That is what my brother and I focused on the entire time. In one of my sessions with my therapist, she pointed out that I was too worried about my mom’s wellbeing to mourn my dad fully. I did not realize I had parked my own emotions, until that therapy session when I explained to her that I was not crying and it was not because I was actively trying not to. My tear ducts seemed to have dried up long before the 6 months were up. She explained that my mourning would be a very personal journey and my spirit would embark on that painful journey when it was ready to.

The day of our cleansing was full of many emotions. I felt drained, anxious, happy, relieved, excited, sad and disconnected, all in one day. I felt drained because the preparations took a lot out of us. I felt anxious because I did not know how I would feel at the end of the cleansing. There is almost an expectation that everything should feel better after this day, but I suspect a big part of me knew that would not be my experience. I felt happy and relieved for my mom because she could finally wear colour again, show her hair again, not rush home from the shops anymore, she could visit her friends again and not be restricted to the four walls of her house. Most importantly, she could just breathe without her all brown outfit announcing that she had recently lost her husband. She no longer needed to wear her heartache for everyone to see. I was sad because it felt as though my dad’s passing was now a thing of the past when in truth it was and still is our daily reality. I felt disconnected from everything and everyone. Family and friends were there to celebrate the day but this was actually a sad day for me.
We had made it to month 6 since losing my dad yet it felt like we had lost my dad the day before. I was in a bit of a daze for most of the day. Sure, I was laughing with family and friends but my spirit was quickly discovering how disconnected I was from the day’s events. It felt as though the real Neo was standing on the sidelines, watching this imposter interact with people. I was not faking the laughter, but it was coming from the surface and not my core. I kept hearing this ringing sound in my ear the whole day yet I had not been around any loud noises. It did not make sense, yet it made perfect sense: my dad’s absence was so loud that day that it left my ears ringing!

Traditionally, with the death of a family member, especially a parent, we cut our hair. I did not cut my hair when my dad passed away in March. I had a big afro that had been thriving and I loved it. I am not my hair, but my hair is a big part of who I am 😉. On the day of the cleansing, I no longer identified with my hair because when I looked at it, it felt as though nothing in my world had changed. I suddenly had an issue with the image in the mirror. I did not hate my face, or my hair, but I realized that nothing about my image represented my dad’s absence yet my mom had gone through 6 months of wearing her heartache in an all brown outfit. It was as if I had lost nothing but I knew that was not the case because I had lost the one-half of my heart and was bleeding on the inside. In that moment, standing in front of the mirror, it became clear: I NEEDED TO CUT MY HAIR! That night, I asked my brother if he would cut my hair the next day and he agreed. I did not care how he would cut it: I just needed it gone! The same way my dad was gone! We were all too exhausted the next day so we slept all day. The next day was a Monday. My brother was still recovering from Saturday’s events and I was having an identity crisis. I needed the hair gone so I made an appointment at the salon.

My boyfriend and I met less than three months after my dad’s passing so the wound was still open when we started getting to know each other, but it took me a while to tell him I had recently lost my dad. I generally tend to overshare, but losing my dad made me not share as much about myself, especially with new people. It almost felt as though if you did not know me before I lost my dad, that you could not fully understand who I now was without him. As soon as I shared that I had recently lost my dad, his focus shifted to regularly checking if I was crying only in his absence or not crying at all. He could not understand how he was in a relationship with someone who had recently lost her dad but was not crying when we were together. He had expressed that he felt I had not cried enough for my dad. He knew how anxious I was feeling before the cleansing and he had been trying to get me to be less anxious. After the cleansing, I explained to him how I needed to cut my hair because I no longer identified with it so I was going to the salon to have it removed.

01 October 2018. The big chop.
It was a Monday, and my boyfriend decided not to go into the office but come to the salon with me instead. One thing that had been consistent about him from when we met was how seriously he took his work. So having him opt not to work on that day to accompany me to the salon meant the world to me. I told him he was free to roam around the mall and come back when I was done, but he insisted on staying with me at the salon. To anybody who does not know how much I analyse and connect things, this was just a salon visit. He understood this was a significant event in my life, without me having to say anything. We left the salon and he “took my new hair out for lunch”, as he put it. While out for lunch, I thanked him for driving me to the salon, without explaining what a big moment that salon visit was for me. He replied saying, “Babes… did you really think I would go to work today and leave you to go through this alone?” He explained that in the short space of time he had known me he realised I carry both my mom and my dad in everything I do. That when I said I no longer identified with my hair (which he knew me to love) he realised this salon visit was not about my hair but about my dad. In this moment, it was impossible for me not to cry because I had not spoken too much about my heartache but he seemed to understand even the little things that were motivated by my loss. He said I did not need to speak much about my pain because it was always in my eyes even though I had not been crying over the loss since we had met.

What followed the big chop were days and weeks of sobbing. I stayed in bed A LOT! He would call me in the morning and give me a pep talk to convince me to get out of bed, eat and work. I hated having to work! Taking a bath was so much of a mission that I would run a bath and have to convince myself to get into the water. Once inside the bath water, I would go into a daze and the bath water would go cold, so I would have to fill up the bath with hot water again. I struggled to eat. Chewing took too much effort so I would just not do it. I could not do it, so I would go days without eating. I was either too full of grief to eat, or I was too tired to eat. My dear mother had a horrible time with my not-eating phase. She would put a pot on the stove at midnight because she had prepared two different meals prior to midnight and I could not eat anything. Because I would switch between not sleeping at all and sleeping all day, she would insist I at least eat something before she leaves me. She would stay up with me on nights when I could not sleep and would fall asleep while my eyes remained wide open until the morning. I watched her almost lose her mind trying to figure out how to make me eat and I hated that I could not make myself eat.

I remember this one night where everything just erupted. I had worked all morning and spent quality time with my mom in the afternoon. I had plans with my boyfriend that night so I told my mom I would be back from his place the following day. I left the house excited to see him and used a route that my mom and I used to use to get to the hospital to visit my dad. I had been on that road a few times since my dad passed on so I thought nothing of it. As soon as I joined Weirda road, it felt like it was my first time on that road since losing my dad. That road suddenly served as a reminder of the hospital visits and the fact that I could no longer pay my dad a visit. I cried all the way from Weirda road to Garsfontein. I am not sure how I did not cause an accident on my way to Garsfontein but I made it there, still sobbing. The tears did not stop, even after I had arrived. We stayed up until 2am. I was in tears the whole time and he was comforting me and encouraging me to let it all out. He was waking up for work at 4am so I felt bad for keeping him up, but he was happy I was finally crying for my dad. He shared that it had taken him 10 years to cry after his own father passed on and that he realised only when he allowed himself to let it out that he had carried so much pain with him, unnecessarily, for all those years and was happy that would not be my reality.

I had finally had the biggest cry since losing my dad and after that night, I started feeling less disconnected to the pain, but also realised the pain was not the enemy but it helped me process the loss. I was finally mourning and healing at the same time. Yes, I still cried after that night but the tears were less like the ocean and more like a peaceful stream. The crying was therapeutic because after each crying session I realised how much pain I had shed so my heart felt less shattered. I was now dating someone who loved food from his home country more than any other food, and he was a good cook so he made it a thing to cook for me and introduce me to dishes he grew up on in his home country. I started eating more when I was with him so he insisted on making more time for each other so he could make sure I kept eating. He made it his mission to get me chewing and swallowing again, and he succeeded.

Before the night of the big cry, I hated going to the cemetery to visit my dad. I would go and not want to say anything so my mom would do the talking for both of us. After the night of the big cry, I started being able to speak at the gravesite. Now the visits are therapeutic and I am able to laugh (with my dad) when I kneel by his gravesite and tell him things I would have told him in person if he had not transitioned.
Has the crying stopped? Nope! Am I able to laugh from my core? Yep !Have I completely healed? Nope!

I still cry for my dad, but I also find myself remembering jokes he used to tell and laughing as if he has just told the joke right now. I feel his absence in the small and the big moments and it sucks that I will have to live with this loud silence for the rest of my life and carry on in a world where his voice no longer exists. I have always loved my dad’s laugh and now I am limited to imagining it so I mourn the fact that his laughter is muted from my world.

I am learning to make friends with the silence and to add soul-soothing sounds to it because I realise I was never meant to exist in a world devoid of Bra Paul’s voice, even if it’s an imagined voice.

Is mourning ever really over? I suspect not… As much as I have started celebrating my dad in different ways, I know I will forever miss having him physically present…There are future moments that I cannot have with him that I am already mourning.

…The day I become a mom and realise my child will never know what it feels like to have my dad give him/her a nickname that (s)he will start off hating, then grow to love it…

I suspect I will continue to cry for him, especially when I become a parent myself. `I suspect my soul will weep because my kids will not meet their grandfather in person, and it will also rejoice knowing that he in fact would have met them long before I would have the pleasure of calling them my own.

 

Last year my world was ripped apart, then rearranged into the most beautiful expressions of love. I had a mixed bag and I would go as far as saying 2018 was my winter, and it was my summer…

My earth angel, affectionately known as Bra Paul, had thankfully had a beautiful entry into 2018, spending it with my mom (the other earth angel) at my brother’s house, while my nephew and I went out together. I had somehow assumed Bra Paul was finally catching a break from all the aches and pains he had been battling for a while. This was because he said he was not in that much pain when he ushered in the New Year. Therefore, I thought “New Year, Less Pain for Bra Paul”. Boy was I wrong because the worst was yet to come. Our winter was just beginning, and it would be a very icy one!

Bra Paul was hospitalised on the second day of the New Year, and went under the knife on the fourth. The operation was intense because they had to cut two of his spinal discs out since his spine was collapsing. They also needed to test the body of mass that seemed to have grown inside the collapsed discs. The tests came back positive for Myeloma cancer. That was a very hard diagnosis to swallow, especially since my parents had already lost a son to cancer when he was only 3 years old. It was obvious that the recovery period would be a long one because he first needed to heal from the spinal operation, and then start with chemotherapy only after that.

After the operation, we had a stranger for a father for about 2 weeks because while he was recovering in ICU, he lost sense of where he was or why he was there. We lived through different, daily, imaginations of what he thought his reality was. We joined him in this imaginary world for 2 weeks. At times, this experience was funny, but most times it was painful because it was evident his mind had not only suffered from the months of pain, but from the procedure done to alleviate the pain as well. The versions varied from him thinking he was in prison and the male nurse was involved in framing him for stealing meat, to him telling us how he was in hospital after being shot in the head. I remember playing along with the prison version, to the point where I agreed I had seen the meat in question (he was sure it was under his bed), had found the receipts that prove he bought the meat, and would present these as evidence to the magistrate so he could be cleared of this terrible crime. There was of course no meat under his bed, but I played along because when you questioned his version of reality he would start thinking you have lost your mind. I also participated in giving the one male nurse dirty looks while my dad was detailing how this man had framed him for a crime he did not commit. Bra Paul was the King of dirty looks when he did not take a liking to someone, so I joined in because this man had done a terrible thing to him. My father had completely lost touch with reality, BUT he never forgot our names or who we were to him. The thing that brought me the most joy in those two weeks was knowing that our relationship did not escape him.

He eventually regained his memory and as we started celebrating the return of his senses and the return of real conversations that followed a proper sequence, his health took an even worse turn. We would then live through almost 3 months of watching him suffer from even worse pain than before and wither away, almost returning to a childlike state. In the process, we all suffered emotionally, spiritually and physically. We each, withered away with him. Bra Paul was in extreme physical pain from the operation he had on his back and strangely enough, I started having serious issues with my back, around the same area he had his operation. He started losing his memory again and I watched the same thing happen to my mom where she would forget she had just watched me eat… So she would ask me, seconds later, if she should dish up for me. I watched the obvious signs of fatigue on my brother’s face. I recognised the signs because I was not sleeping, so I knew he was not sleeping either. How could we sleep when our earth angel was trying to stay in a body that was failing and rejecting him more and more each day? I had already seen how my father’s illness was taking a toll on us all, even before he went into hospital. There were weeks where Bra Paul could not walk, so my mom did a lot of heavy lifting because he needed assistance even just moving from the bed to the couch that was right next to the bed. In the moments when my mom was nursing him at home and it was getting too much for her because she was not getting enough rest, my brother would wake up extra early in the morning, drive to our house to give Bra Paul a bath before heading to work for the day. This helped my mom a great deal, because she could stay in bed a little longer and do less heavy lifting. My brother would also come back to our house after work and soak my father’s feet, rub him and pray for him. This was a beautiful expression of love, but it also caused my brother a great deal of physical and emotional exhaustion. You see, our winter actually started long before Bra Paul went into hospital.

March 23rd is when my earth angel left us. I still remember everything about that day. How I woke up early because I was starting a new project in 2 weeks’ time and was supposed to be having an informal chat with my soon-to-be new boss while the paperwork was being finalised. How I was supposed to fetch my mom from the new facility my father had moved to the previous night. How I had an appointment with my therapist to chat about coping with the daily pain of watching my father slip away from us. How my day was going to end off on a high note because I had a long overdue date with my cousin, Palesa. I had her belated birthday gift with me and had not managed to see her since the year began. It was hard to see people when my life revolved around going to the hospital and sleeping the pain off.
I never made it to the meeting with my new boss (nor did I start on the project 2 weeks later). My mom asked me to turn back when I was on my way to fetch her. It did not make sense at the time because it was raining hard yet she insisted I should not come anymore. My therapist cancelled our session while I was on my way, so another U-turn for the day. My plans were all cancelled, except for one. My cousin was still able to meet for our long overdue catch-up and I was looking forward to offloading in the presence of the calm spirit she is. She arrived with her sister and the three of us kept laughing about what a strange night we were having because we were sharing a table with strangers who were saying the oddest things throughout that night. On this night, a Friday night, I felt like I was watching the night unfold, from outside of myself. My thoughts seemed louder than usual and time seemed not to move as fast as it normally did.

My phone kept dying that night. I had charged it twice in a space of four hours, yet it still died once again. With my phone cutting the outside world out, my brother called my friend (cupcake) to find out where I was. After finding out about my whereabouts, he called on my cousin’s phone, asking me to come home. He did not (have to) say it. I knew what news I would hear when I got home. I was not wrong because the first thing I asked when I got home was if my father had passed on. My mom and my brother were sitting in the bedroom together and they both said yes. My mom said it verbally while my brother said it with his eyes. In that moment, everything that was hurting inside of me recognised that my brother was the only other person in that moment, who was feeling exactly what I was feeling. The loss of a parent. I knew that the only way to deal with my pain in that moment was to attempt numbing his with a tight embrace. The pain did not subside, but that embrace let my spirit know that I was not alone, and that we would have to carry each other through the rest of the moments in which we would miss Bra Paul. My next embrace was for my remaining earth angel, our mother, Sis B. Only after gathering some strength from my brother, could I embrace the most important person in my life. Sis B has always been our pillar of strength in everything, but in that moment, she needed us to be her pillars. I struggled with the fact that I had packed Bra Paul’s wardrobe the night before when he moved from the hospital to a stepdown facility, and now my mom was saying we needed to go there to identify his body and pack his things. I said no, because it would be too painful. However, as soon as she and my brother drove out, I realised I had made the wrong call. That my mom would look back on the moment when she went to identify her husband’s body and I would not be there to hold her hand and soothe her heart. I imagined her packing his belongings without the person who had unpacked them with her the night before. My spirit was not OK with being absent in the moments she was about to face, so I asked my cousins to drive me to the facility.

 

I am glad I reconsidered because those moments in my earth angel’s room were the most intimate moments the three of us experienced as a family. There was a weird sense of peace that came over us as we said goodbye to him. I watched my brother wipe my father’s face with so much love and care, much like when he used to soak and rub his feet when he was still at home with us. We were not able to touch him when he was in hospital because the slightest touch caused him great pain. Up until this moment, my acts of love had been feeding him soup on days he was in too much pain to swallow his food, and watching him smile from what I imagined were the memories that played in his mind when I played him music in his hospital room. On this night, I finally got to give him a kiss on the forehead as my final act of love.

Losing Bra Paul led to a discovery of a love greater than I knew people had for me, for us. This loss opened my eyes to just how big my tribe is! I cried more because of the love and support we received, than over losing my earth angel. My mom had always told me how loved I am and that I should treasure that. I had never really taken this to heart before, and it took losing my earth angel to realise she was right. Moms are always right!

This realisation is when my summer began, right in the middle of our coldest season.

I had friends who literally put their lives on hold that week and were with us, every step of the way, some even bringing their husbands with and having them lend a hand to my uncles and male cousins with the manly work done in preparation for the funeral. I cried when a friend rearranged his exam venue and drove from Mpumalanga to Gauteng to write, just so he could attend the funeral in the morning, and still write his exam a few hours later. I was humbled when friends who had buried family members less than three months before Bra Paul left us, showed up for the funeral. They were willing to reopen their new wounds to help me deal with my own. I was speechless when people arrived with groceries to lessen the burden of providing for those coming to pay their respects during the week. Friends showed their generosity by contributing amounts I never expected them to. My friends did not care that they had to wake up early for work during the week; they were at our house as if they lived with us. I watched how my different groups of friends merged into one and worked together as the ultimate expression of love and support for me, and for my family. I watched my friends help me bury Bra Paul as they would bury their own fathers. I could never explain how deeply this moved me, and still moves me today. My friends not only merged into one, but they became family. What is expected when a loved one passes on, is family pulls together. What happened when my loved one passed on is my family grew larger. Losing my father served as a reintroduction to what real friendship not only looks like, but also (most importantly) feels like. I have no doubts that I am blessed through the people I have in my life, who showed me so much love from the time my earth angel went into hospital. They helped bring so much warmth during an icy cold period in my life.

I recognise that everyone in my life is in it for a special purpose and that they all play a vital role, even when their parts seem small at times. I now realise there was a divine reason only one of my plans materialised the day my father passed on. God knew he was about to break my heart into a million pieces, and the only thing he could do to lessen the blow, was to gift me with the company of cousins who would help my spirit remain intact as my father’s spirit left.
We all go through different seasons in life and what 2018 taught me is your tribe determines how cold your winter is, just as much as they determine how sunny and warm your summer is. I will forever be grateful for all the summer bunnies who form part of my tribe!

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton