On the loss of a friend

NO!!!!

This can’t be true…

Oh God, no! This can’t be true.

Motherhood unfinished,

Broken hearts in a broken world.

I have no words…

Kindness seems barren,

Healing far away

Oh God, no:

This can’t be true…

Say something! Answer!

How can You be silent

In this time when we most

Need Your voice, Your comfort?

God of the broken-hearted…?

I have no words…

Love feels far away

Anger brings no comfort

Now is the time to be

Emmanuel – God with us*

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We were both identical twins. We were both “Mama kaThulani”. Ntombi loved fiercely and laughed joyfully…and with a very naughty twinkle in her eye. When she sang, spiritual strongholds would crumble and fall. She spoke her mind. She brought wisdom to restless spaces. She fought for the marginalised and the oppressed. She dreamed and worked towards a home of her own – she did not see that dream come to fruition. She dreamed and worked towards caring for children who were lost and vulnerable – she worked so hard and dreamed so big, but her body did not last long enough to see that dream become a reality.

At Easter, after a few short months of fatigue and crescendoing pain, she was in hospital…in the very season where we remember that life triumphs over death, were told there was nothing more that could be done save making her comfortable and giving her love in her last few days.

She was gone before Ascension Day even came around.

The day that she passed away – 26 May – there was a berg wind – a wind that brought heat and restlessness on what should have been a cold, Winter day. The weather reflected perfectly the discordant, restlessness of my heart. On that date, 20 years ago, I first became “Mama kaThulani”. My own Thulani came home. “Thulani Unknown”, the boy with the “DNR”** on his folder, the silent baby who had stopped crying because crying hadn’t elicited a caring response from anyone in the first 5 months of his life – this Thulani came home. After being told there was nothing more that could be done, save giving him love in what was supposed to have been a very short life, this Thulani came home to a mother, aunts, uncles, Grandparents, life, love and flourishing. As we left the hospital on that dark wintery evening 20 years ago, one of the nurses yelled, “Hey, Thulani! You are not unknown anymore!” My heart still bursts with joy as I write that line.

And now, 20 years later, on the same date, as we prepared to celebrate, another young Thulani had lost his mom. A diagnosis of “there is nothing we can do” and a prognosis of “only a few last days” had not been reversed…there had not been the miracle we had hoped and prayed for, even as we saw her body continue to crumble. Two more boys had been left without a mother, a mother without her child, a twin without the other heart that had beaten with hers since they had been knitted together in their mother’s womb, siblings had lost a sister, we had lost a dear friend, sister and co-conspirator and the world had lost a nurturer, a warrior, a protector, a gifted musician, a carer, someone who sees those who remain invisible to most, an encourager… and so much more…so much more.

She was buried the day before Pentecost…Pentecost: the day so long ago that we all became one family, one body – the day our hearts were set up to be shattered and broken into tiny shards again and again as we chose to be one, to be knitted in with others who we would lose in this still-broken world. The day we were sent the Comforter…

Today, 11 June, would have been Ntombi’s birthday. I learned the date off by heart through the last few weeks of looking at hospital files, applying for hospice care and living with the hope that she would see one more year of life being celebrated with her twin. I definitely have not found the words yet, but I wanted to write something because I don’t know if there will ever come a time when this will make sense or I will be at peace with her life ending so early. So I decided to write, but I don’t really even know how to end this…

Ntombi: I love you, I miss you, my heart is broken over losing you. I will love your boys, I will remember you with delight and joy and I will work towards your dreams of every person having a place to call home, every child having a family of their own and every person who is yet unseen to be seen, to be found, to be treasured and placed back into community and belonging.

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*This was written as part of a time of lament in our community. Apparently the book of Lamentations is a collection of Acrostic poems – poems that begin with the first letter of the alphabet and then each line or stanza which follows begins with the next letter in the alphabet. Eugene Peterson wrote that, although grief is spontaneous and so it might be surprising for it to reflect a “structure” of any sort, the gift of an acrostic form is that you leave no detail out, no “letter unwritten” – the repetition of the acrostic form gives an opportunity to go over and over your grief until finally it is fully expressed…or as fully expressed as is possible. I based my lament on the letters of Ntombi’s full name…I think I will have to write these letters out again and again over the next weeks, months and years if I ever hope to have given this full expression, but it was a start. There was more written for this lament than the opening lines in this blogpost, but it went to surprising places which would have to be explained with even more words, so I thought I would leave it there.

** DNR – Do not resuscitate. This is written on a patient’s folder when they are thought to be near death: if their heart stops, or they stop breathing, the DNR instruction guides hospital carers not to try any life-saving intervention, but rather just make the patient comfortable and let death happen. After Thulani became “the boy who lived”, we fought for months to get that off his folder in case he ever landed in hospital again!!

Can a Mother forget…?

“Can a mother forget the infant at her breast, walk away from the baby she bore?” – Isaiah 49:15 (MSG)

There is an unmistakable moment when you become a parent – something shifts in you on a tectonic level which changes your foundational identity for ever. For some, this is when they see the first heartbeat of their babies on the monitor*, for others it is when they hold their baby after birth, for others it is when our kids are brought home for the first time – at a few days old, at a few years old – for others it happens later…whenever it happens, the moment is the same: you are no longer the person you were the second before that fundamental shift.

The isiXhosa culture and language has a beautiful way of symbolising this shift. It led to a cute moment this week where a friend and I greeted each other at the same time, “Molo, Mama kaThulani” (“Hello, Mother of Thulani”)…the people with us laughed with joy as they were reminded that we both have first born sons with the name Thulani, and so now we have the same name too: we are identified first and foremost by those that make us “mother”. As we create or adopt our children, so they in turn create us.

(The highest compliment I was ever paid for an item of clothing was, “When you wear that skirt, you look like the mother of Thulani and Zizi and Masi”.)

I don’t want to limit this experience only to mothers or to parents – there are many people who carry children and other people in their hearts in ways which have fundamentally shifted who they are and how they perceive and act and “be” in this world. But I am a mom, and so will write from that perspective.

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I walk the earth in my pale skin and have benefited from a deeply violent social system which has perceived me and treated me as something better because of that pale skin…and people who look like my children as at best less valuable and, at worst, less human, than me. This is vile and I am committed to destroying this system.

As a mom of image-bearers of Christ with a darker brown skin than I have, I also walk the earth with a heart which carries my children as a foundational part of who I am – and so everything I see and hear and read and do is experienced through this identity. In a world dominated by the pale-skinned narrative – and everything which has been constructed around it to prop up its superiority and survival – I have spent years navigating this fragile journey of bringing my children up in a country where the minority of people are pale-skinned, but where my children would still be viewed as less-than or suspect because of the colour of their skin.

This past week, I have joined others in extreme levels of heartache.

I reeled at the results of the US election and swore that neither my children nor husband would ever travel there, while at the same time I mourned with friends and strangers who call the US home, that their very identity had been attacked, or at the very least diminished (which I think is attack)**, by those who voted in this man.

I have read people’s commentaries and comments on the proposed vote of no confidence in President Zuma – commentaries which are, not always but so very often, tainted with an undertone of racism, which people would deny, but is so evident to those with brown bodies.

In addition to this, through other conversations and happenings this week, I am recognising a sharp increase in some groups of people of colour shutting down other groups, or telling them that they have no right to speak because, while they have too been oppressed by the colonialist and apartheid systems, they have not been as oppressed as others. I have seen factionalism grow as people fight for who has the greatest right to speak of, and act in response to, oppression – a fight in identifying who the true revolutionaries are, and who, by inference, are then the sell-outs/colluders/house slaves/new oppressors, etc.

Where once I only feared for the warped perceptions of some pale-skinned people and how they would treat my children, I had now become fearful for my children’s safety (and that of my husband’s) should our country continue on the path of violent white privilege (make no mistake – this system is violent!) being met with violent black pain…but where more and more people in brown skin are being viewed as “not black enough” to be on the “right side” of the revolution.
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“Can a mother forget the infant at her breast, walk away from the baby she bore?”

This was read in church on Sunday morning. In that moment, I realised all the pain, confusion and fear which I had been carrying this week. With those words, my heart broke open – a yawning chasm of pure horror – a resounding NO!!! as this most rhetorical question suggested that this could ever even be considered a possibility…my face, which had held together relatively “well” for the days before, followed my broken heart and crumbled in weeping.

And then, having broken open my heart and shown me the depths of my fears this week, God was able to pour the words that followed like a balm into the chasm:
“Even if mothers forget [which I need to reiterate is entirely impossible]***, I’d never forget you – never.”
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This is NOT meant to be one of those posts which says, “God is in control – don’t worry about Trump/racism/xenophobia/sexism/fill-in-the-blank-ism” or “God elects the leaders, so all you must do is pray for them” or any of the other ways people have tried to comfort or pretend we are not responsible for the world we live in.

It might be saying more, but what it definitely IS saying is: which mother, knowing their children were hurting, being scorned, being crushed, being assaulted, would stop at NOTHING to protect them and work to establish a world in which this couldn’t possibly happen to anyone’s children ever again? Which of us would not put our bodies, hearts and souls on the line for our children? How much more would God – who poured out everything to take on flesh and walk among us, who put body, mind and heart on the line for us, who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow – stop at nothing to protect all those who have been created and born in God’s image, and work to establish a world in which everyone, everyone, is treated as precious, precious, precious children and siblings?

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“See: I have engraved you on the palm of my hands…” v16

In the same way as our children create us as parents, through deep, unfathomable love for us, God also chooses an identity which is inextricably bound to that of Parent…what stronger way is there to show this than this image of us being engraved on the palms of our Parent’s hands?

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And we are called to be God’s hands and feet, and heart and head, and eyes and ears and mouths in this world.

“I form you and use you
to reconnect the people with Me –
To restore the land
And to resettle families on the ruined properties,
To say to captives, “Come out,”
And to those huddled in fear, “It’s all right. It’s safe now.”
Isaiah 49: 8-9 MSG/NIV mash-up

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Footnotes…(because I use brackets too much already!)

* Which is part of why miscarriages and still-births are so foundationally painful and can’t be dismissed lightly – there has already been an identity shift – one which centres our entire identity around that little being.

** I know a lot of people say they voted for Trump, but don’t agree with his views on people of colour, immigrants, women, LGBTQI persons, Muslims, etc – but if they could see ANYTHING else as more central to the vote than that (giving licence to these views), it feels like they have chosen other issues over people’s actual identities, so it still feels like attack to me.

*** (barring mental illness and huge brokenness which we need to acknowledge because some of our children are carrying that pain)

This wasn’t footnoted anywhere but, because Hillary is not the only one who feels like she has failed girl-children this week, I want to point out that God used the image of a mother to describe the nature of the love which is given to us through the Godhead. Jesus referred to God as “Father” – which is beautiful, especially given the way gods (and even God) were viewed in those days and the fact that Caesar had declared himself “Father” over all the people under Roman occupation – and it is wonderfully true that God is our Father. It is also true that God is referred to in female imagery (“mother”, “hen”, “many breasted God” and others which I shan’t go into now) and in a time in which women were treated as accessories by men (just think about how RADICAL that is!) – and so it is wonderfully true that God is our Mother…as well as an eagle, a lion, a lamb and many other images which can help to explain the completely Indescribable and Uncontainable. We are invited to explore a far richer and more beautiful image of God when we explore all these metaphors, and don’t limit God (and each other) by limiting our speech to God as male-only.

On sex-trafficking, nipple-chafing and swords which are ever-heavier to carry

Quaker tradition tells of a young man of rank who joined the gathering of Friends*. At the time, it was customary for young men in his social class to carry swords. It was, however, customary for the Friends to wear simple, non-distinctive attire – people of all walks were equally valued and welcomed. Meeting up with George Fox (the “founder” of the  Quakers) one day, the young man wondered aloud whether he would be able to carry on wearing his sword now that he was a Quaker. George’s wise response was, “Wear it for as long as you are able”.

On Tuesday morning, I sat crying as a beautiful, gregarious 24-year old told a group of us how, as a popular, gifted 14-year old, she had attended a sports practice one afternoon after school. After consuming an energy drink which had been given to the team, she woke up a few hours later in the back of a truck with 3 other team mates, being driven from Burundi to South Africa, where they were locked up in a room in Durban and raped multiple times daily by various men. The men drugged the girls to stop their screaming and, eventually, the girls begged for the drugs as the only way to numb the pain they were experiencing on every level.

She isn’t clear about the timespan, but has calculated it to be around 2 years that this went on, before a security guard helped the 4 escape, leaving them at the train station. Only being able to speak French and Swahili (how could they have learned any South African languages through that time?), they were now living on the street, not sure where to turn, and in serious withdrawal. They took to staving off hunger by shop-lifting pieces of fruit.

After a few days or weeks (it was a blur) of living on the street, Dania** heard a man walking past busy on his cellphone, speaking her home language. She approached him and begged for his help to get her to the police so she could get home to Burundi. He took her home with him, fed her and gave her a place to sleep. After 3 days and no sign of him taking her to the police, he told her that, if he was going to look after her, she would have to have sex with him. He then locked her in the house (“a toilet is all you need and there is one here”) and, for the next few years, raped and beat her. Whenever the neighbours would ask him who the woman was they sometimes caught a glimpse of, he would move them to another house.

It was when she was pregnant with his second child (and allowed out only to go to the clinic) that someone at the clinic recognised her: she was apparently the spitting image of her mother. This woman managed to get Dania’s mom’s contact details and, after 4 long years, Dania heard her mother’s voice again…A funeral had been held for Dania a year or so after she had gone missing, but her mom had always believed that she was still alive…

“It is over. Come home.”

Filled with indescribable joy, she told her abuser (he was the only person in her life and she thought he might be happy for her). He beat her and kicked her as she lay on the floor. The next time Dania was able to sneak to the clinic to phone home, she was greeted with the news that her mother, on discovering that her daughter who had been lost was now found, had been so overwhelmed with emotion that she had suffered a heart attack and passed away…

Nowhere to go, she stayed with her abuser. A few years later, seeing the violence being played out between her children, she made an incredibly brave decision for their sakes. She and her children have been staying in a shelter for a while now, but have exhausted their allotted time there and have to leave in 4 weeks time. She speaks of a deep yearning for, and absence of, belonging. She doesn’t know anyone in the outside world except her abuser. She doesn’t know where they are going to go…

Later that day, I sat in a parent meeting discussing my 15-year old’s sports tour to Europe next year. With the  ever-expanding budget, it had been decided that they would not have special playing tops made. But, it was wondered, could they not get the tour emblem embroidered on to their normal tops to help them feel a bit special? Conversation ensued around the positioning of the embroidered emblem so as not to cause painful nipple chafing…

* another name for the Quakers
** not her real name

A story even worse than that – A Lament*

Three years ago, while camping with my family, I was chatting to the seven-year old girl who was camping next to us. She asked me what had happened to my three children’s birth mothers and so I told her their stories – explaining that Thulani’s birth mom had been too sick and poor to look after him and so had left him at a bus station where she knew other people would find him and be able to love him, and that Zizi and Masi’s birth mom had died 5 days after Masi had been born, and so I was given the privilege of becoming their real mom.

After hearing these stories, she was silent and then responded with words I will never forget: “Ek het a storie wat nog erger as dit is…” (I have a story which is even worse than that).

She then proceeded to tell me about her parents’ divorce – how they had fought for such a long time, that her mother had been so cross that she had hit her father with her handbag, and how now they lived in separate houses and weren’t married anymore…

The Psalmists use a word at a point like this: Selah (roughly translated as “Pause and think about that a bit”).

…I really don’t know why I asked the question, but I asked her which was better for her: her parents fighting all the time but all of them being together, or her parents living in separate places and the fighting stopping… I have never felt more stupid than I did when I saw the expression on her face…as if either of those two choices were ones which she would have made! What an absolutely horrible choice/comparison to put in front of a child…

And yet so many parents do that to their children. They make adult decisions to get married, they make adult decisions to have children and, when the going gets tough, they expect their children to deal with the consequences as if they were adults, presenting them with those two options…
“you know mommy and daddy have been fighting a lot lately…well, we have decided that it would be better if we didn’t live in the same house any more”…and the kids are meant to make sense of that? Feel better now that the fighting is over – with this as the solution? What kind of choice is that to give a child? To leave them with a life story that feels even worse in their imaginations than being abandoned or losing a parent?

(* When reading a lament/rant by me, please be aware that I hold so much compassion for people and am ranting more at the general pattern and the spirit of this world than the individuals who have gone through really painful relational breakdowns and whose hearts are breaking because of they know how this will affect their children and still think this is the best decision – or don’t think it’s the best decision and are wanting to fight for their marriage, but the (good) fight is one-sided. I am lamenting for the millions of children going through this, not ranting against the individual parents).