Two weeks ago we held a small, intimate ceremony for the erection of Mma's tombstone. It was during the service when someone mentioned "Garankuwa hospital", that the mere utterance of that hospital, suddenly evoked some vague flashes of the pain I remember each time it was said Mma was going to Garankuwa. I would later learn, as a grown up man, that this was where she received her chemotherapy.
Early one Saturday in March of 1986, while attending a wedding, my mother called her close friend to the bathroom and revealed, for the very first time, that she had breast cancer and how far advanced it had become. That is how some of those close to her came to know what she was suffering from, and that this was the same sickness that had claimed the life of her own mother. It was soon discovered that the cancer had already reached stage 4. And thus began her battle with cancer and rigorous chemotherapy at Garankuwa, and that is how that hospital is etched in my memory.
Some close friends started praying for her, even dedicating 8 days for fasting and prayer for the healing of my mother. Her close friend, the one she first disclosed her cancer to, tells me that it is during this time that she (the friend) specifically started praying that the pain would go away, because my mother's pain had become terribly unbearable. Their prayer was answered, in as far as pain was concerned. Mom became better, and she was able to go back to teaching.
One weekend in May of 1987, three months after going back to work, she attended a conference at a church which didn't have windows and it was particularly cold as winter was approaching. So cold it was that weekend, especially in the church, that on her return home, she contracted pneumonia and was hospitalized. On Thursday, the 14th of May 1987, my mother, Takalani Faith Matsila, left this world to be with The Lord.
My 3 elder siblings were fetched from school on the morning when mom died. Nothing was said to them on the drive home. It was only when they reached home to find our two grandmothers there that they started suspecting something had gone terribly wrong. Papa took them to the bedroom, and here, they were told that Mma had left us - she had succumbed and lost her battle with breast cancer.
My dad is a strong man. But I do not know how he made it through this very dark patch in his life. As if breaking the news to his 3 eldest children (aged 12, 11 and 10) would be difficult enough, he still needed to tell the news to his toddlers, the 3 year-old twins. I'm not sure what he expected. Papa, in his speech at the unveiling, told those who had gathered of how I reacted when he broke the news to my twin sister and I that our mother had died. She had ascended to the sky, he told us. Papa remarks that instead of being distressed by the news, I responded with curiosity and fascination: apparently I asked him, "how did she get up there? Vho to namela stepisi (did she go up by a step-ladder)?" I don't know what his response to this was, but whatever mode of "transport" she used to go to heaven, we would never see her again. Death had robbed me and my twin of knowing anything more about our mother. She was gone. Cancer had won.
She left behind a loving husband, three near-teenagers (two girls and a boy) and 3 year-old twins (a girl and a boy).
Years later, when her grand-daughter (my elder brother's child) Rinae Faith Matsila, suddenly died at the tender age of just 4 months, I worked tirelessly with the undertakers, preparing the grave where she would be laid to rest from her very brief journey on earth. We worked around the clock to make sure that when the funeral procession arrived later that afternoon, my niece's final resting place would be ready. We laid my niece, Rinae, to rest on the early evening of 8th April 2005.
There is something very heartbreaking about leaving a loved one at the grave. Although a staunch Christian, and one comforted by the hope that I will be reunited with my loved ones when Christ appears, I still couldn't help feeling haunted by the thought and tinge of guilt that we had left my loved ones "alone". I remember very well this heaviness when we left my niece at her grave.
Just 1 week later, this heaviness revisited me when death, in its ugliest form, brought us back to the graveyard, this time to lay to rest my twin sister who was suddenly killed in a car accident that nearly wiped out my family driving home after the funeral, just a few hours after burying our niece. Again, I felt guilty, that we were going to leave another loved one alone at the grave - this time, my beautiful twin sister.
But life works mysteriously, and it has ways in which it brings us comfort in strange ways. A few months ago, when we were preparing for the unveiling of my mother's tombstone, a startling discovery was made. One of my sisters had the task to look for our mother's grave. Buried 27 years ago, with nothing substantial to mark her grave, this seemed to be an arduous task. But as her search for the grave intensified, with the help of the municipality records, she finally found where Mma had been laid to rest all those years ago. But to our absolute amazement, our niece's grave, was only a few feet away from her grandmother.
Rinae's mortal body was no longer "alone" as I had imagined. Very close to her, was her grandmother, after whom she is aptly named. Preparing the grave of my niece that sad afternoon in April of 2005, I did not know that almost next to us, lay my mother, a woman I loved dearly but knew very little about. A woman whose fading memory I fantasized about and yearned more of.
My mother is remembered by those who knew her for her warmth and kind heart. She is said to have had a very hearty and infectious laughter that made people happy, says a family friend. She is also said to have been a gifted soprano. Another close friend of hers described her as a teacher dedicated to the upliftment of the black child through a youth mentorship program she helped establish. My siblings remember her, apart from her love for us, for her wit and sense of humour.
Papa tells me that she was a woman who loved The Lord, a woman who supported and encouraged him to be bold when he needed to leave his secular job to go into full-time pastoral ministry after many years of putting on-hold the call of God. So resolute was she in encouraging him that she assured my dad that even though him being in ministry would adversely affect the financial stability of the family, our family would survive on whatever money she brought in from her teachers' salary. That's my mother.
What will I remember her for? How will I remember my beloved mother? I am not sure. But in memory of her, I recently put up her wedding day picture as my profile picture on Facebook. Very beautiful, donning her breath-taking smile, she attracted beautiful comments from my friends as they acknowledged her beauty. So beautiful and youthful is Mma on that picture that one friend of mine, clearly not privy to who this was, assumed that this was MY bride, and remarked how disappointed he was that he had not been invited to my wedding. Mma's beauty has proved to be timeless.
My mom was a beautiful woman, and she was a gorgeous bride, dearly loved by my dad and adored by her children. And that's how I will always remember her - a beautiful bride to my father, a loving mother to my siblings and I, and true to her names, she was a woman of Faith who made those around her Happy.
We love you Mma, and you will forever be in our hearts.
