A heart throb

I always promised myself that if I was going to share this part of my life I would ask for permission from the people involved in this story to share their lives and that I would be able to dignify their existence while telling this life lesson. I am going to tell you about a family member that we gained in the December of 2004.

My stepdad had injured himself after trying to move a big glass mirror off his van in his attempt to show my mom. It was his Christmas present to her. That accident ended tragically and fast forward a few months from that day, the head of the family was laid to rest, a few weeks ahead of what would have been their 7^th wedding anniversary. My mom was a widow with 2 young girls. I was in my Matric year and my sister was in preschool.  I stretched myself between school, a school play, choir and home.  I was stretched but I didn’t care because my biggest worry and hugest life concern was and is my mother.

There was a series of health complications that had led to my stepdad passing away but mostly his CD4 count was too low the day of the accident and this meant that his life was hanging by a thread after losing so much blood while we waited for an ambulance. Soon after that my mother took herself and my sister for tests. My sister was ok however my mom was HIV positive and we now had to face this on top of the death that had forced us to part with the father of the home. I speak highly of my stepdad because I strongly believe that my sister deserves to forever hold a high mental image of who her father was. He was a hard working man that did everything for his family. My little sister deserves to know that her father was not weak as a man and so that will always be a legacy my mother and I holistically and collectively thrive to keep.

After I heard the devastating news I remember my mother’s boss asking me how I felt. I must be honest it was the first and last time I allowed this disease to cripple me in fear. I couldn’t reply I just cried. The thought of my mother trying to deal with so much overwhelmed me that I cried. From that morning onwards I have never had to cry because I decided this was not how my mother will bow out. Not if I could help it.

We started this thing my mother and I, where if needs be we will joke and laugh about this extra family member that doesn’t eat, bath, play or even speak. We welcomed in HIV/Aids into our home and I did as much research as I could to know what was happening inside my mom’s body. She soon gained the confidence and started to speak openly about it. First with family and counselled some family members. Now she speaks publically. I remember the one year she went to a corporate office and shared her story. I was so proud that day. I felt like mom pulled her tongue out at HIV and told it “I’m no longer your friend”.

Nothing would have prepared us for October and November of 2016. I was in Johannesburg for my annual pilgrimage to the busy city for some inspiration when my sister sent a text that mom was in pain. I didn’t know the number that was texting me so I immediately discarded the text. At midday I got a call from my mom with the most skin crawling screams of pain. For the first time in my life she had all her guards down and was crying and shrieking asking me why did I leave her for her to suffer in pain. Shingles (a painful skin rash) had come for a second time. This time she had it by her rib cage and she couldn’t move her entire side. She lay in bed the entire week till I arrived back from Johannesburg. She had seen doctors and they had given her pain killers and other medicine. But I was never ready to see my mother in bed for weeks. She got better but something happened to her internally. She made a decision that she was going to live for her kids and take nothing for granted. We have seen another side of our mom we never knew. She has a new drive to chase after the things she still needs to do. But mostly she’s so loving and she’s so kind. She is so compassionate and she is so supportive. She just wants us to smile and be happy. Every day I get “I Love you” texts. She is hilarious and so captivating but mostly she is present and alive.

The lesson I’d like to leave you with is that HIV/Aids is not a death sentence nor is it something that can take your dignity from you unless you chose to allow it to. My mother always tells me that if you allow this disease to own you, you will go before your time. But if you tell it every morning that “I want to live, I have things to do today my friend and we are going to do them together” you can live a long and happy life. Well according to my mother anyway.

If you have a parent, partner, sibling or friend that is HIV positive please extend compassion and live with positivity in your heart.  If you are HIV positive, I do not know how this feels but what I do know is that there is all the fighting power within you to say, I’m going to live a full life and it begins today. Truth is, typing this was painful because I had to reflect on things I had hidden far away in my mind. Mostly I had to ask my mother for permission to broadcast her life experience, her reply left me with the realisation that you can do anything but if you don’t do it with love and compassion you have failed the test. I hope this reaches far and wide and I hope that you live with loads of compassion from now on in your heart. We live amongst strong and fierce people. They are not on our city billboards, they are in our homes.