Ode to my Mom

I have been contemplating life and death the past week as the anniversary of my moms death came and went. Feb 18 2008 she passed away, 6 months after I moved to Canada.

The funny thing is, the more I think about it, the more I didn't really KNOW my mom. I couldn't tell you what her favorite meal was. Or her favorite color.
I know that she was a lady. Always well dressed, hair done, nails done, makeup on, always high heel shoes. She was soft spoken and always polite. In other words - the complete opposite of me :)
There are other things about her that I understand more now, after her death, than what I did when she was alive.
I can tell you that she died of a broken heart, nearly 30 years after my dad passed away. I promise to do justice to their incredible love story in another blog.

my mom and dad

mom and dad very much in love :) 

Yep - my mom was a bombshell :) 

I know that she was incredibly brave, single mom in 1979 that went out and got a job and did what she had to do, for ME. She bought us a condo, and a few years later, a house.

A swimming pool was added, for me. I had all the pets I wanted (apart from a horse, even though I nagged and whined and didn't understand that she couldn't afford one. )

She loved dance, that much I know. She did Spanish dancing. She was quite the beauty queen in her day, too :) Hence I was dragged through Ballet (which I hated, I'd much rather have had a horse!)
I was also entered in a few beauty pageants for kids, but because I was so painfully shy, that career never really took off  either(haha!)
She loved the ocean and always talked about retiring to the coast. She didn't really like cooking or baking, and she was dysmal at sewing/needlework/knitting. So much so that when she helped me with school projects, my teachers never guessed it wasn't my work!
Art she was good at  - painting and drawing. Very creative! She was sensitive.

Please note the high heels, nails, hair and makeup :)

When I eventually started getting into horses, she enjoyed coming to shows with me. She kept track of jumping scores, rushed to tell me which obstacle was giving the most problems, and when Piet was video taping, I could hear hear audiable gasps of mother fearing for her daughters life in the background!

Like me, she enjoyed a bit of writing and wrote some pretty funny poems - one in particular about the day the garbage collection comes. I will have to translate it from Afrikaans and post it here. :)
She also wrote some really, really sad pages which helped me understand the depth of her depression.
You see, in 1979 there wasn't any trauma counselling or psychiatrists. You didn't go see a shrink if you couldn't cope with the death of a loved one - shrinks were for looneys. All the years she struggled with it. Denied it, I think even to herself. She somehow coped with it when I was small, but as I grew older and started becoming more independent in high school, her fear of losing me, of losing the one thing that connected her to the memory of my dad - consumed her. That fear coincided with my teenage years and did exactly what she didn't want - it drove me away from her. In the ways of teenagers, I couldn't understand this sudden change in our relationship. How she seemed clingy and needy - like a child. I moved out at 18, not being able to cope with it. She had a few attempted suicide episodes - taking overdoses. I know it was a cry for help. We got her booked into rehab, and for a while things were better. She was diagnosed bipolar (which I believe was wrong - there were no manic/depressive phases, it was just depression. Post traumatic stress.)

I know that as a kid, I didn't make it easy for her to have new relationships either. I was possessive in the way of single children. I can look back at my 10 year old self and see that now.

She started drinking, which didn't mix well with anti-depressants. She got booked off work for long spells.
We (being me, her sisters, parents and the ever faithful Piet, my uncle and father figure through many many years) begged, pleaded, talked nice, shouted, cursed, fought.  Tried and tried again to get through to her. It was incredibly frustrating. I understand now, having been through another addiction problem with my late best friend, that really, there IS nothing you can do. It is an incredible struggle to watch someone you love destroy themselves. I was haunted with it. Give it one more try. Give up. Try again. Give up again. Even now, after her death, I sometimes wonder if there wasn't something else, one MORE thing I could have done. But the truth is, they have to help themselves. They have to WANT to help themselves.

My mother gave up the will to live. She couldn't see past her depression, didn't want to be helped.

I talked to doctors, to psychiatrists, to people she knew. She worked in the medical profession as a secretary and I knew a lot of her co-workers. I asked advice. But they all knew that it was in vain. They all loved her, but watched her shut everyone out, even her work friends. She would see no one, go nowhere.

I knew I had to come to Canada, as this was part of MY life that I was making for myself. Some might say it was selfish, that I should have stayed. But I am sure if I had stayed, the outcome would have been the same.
I told Piet before I left that, Either the shock of it would get her back on track, OR she would be dead within 6 months. I was right. I left July 2007 and she passed away February 2008. I couldn't go back for the funeral. By this time, I had a job and obligations in Canada and I simply couldn't afford the flight back to SA and back to Canada.

The last thing I had sent her was a Christmas card. Piet kept it as a surprise and gave it to her Christmas day 2007. We spoke on the phone occasionally  it was hard to talk to her by then, she was always sad and it upset me terribly. I remember being quite short with her when she called me one Sunday in late January. That was to be the last time I ever spoke to her. That haunts me too. How I wish I could have spoken to her one more time, told her that I loved her so, so, so much. Told her how thankful I am for all she sacrificed for me, for giving me this life that I hold so dear. Tell her how sorry I am that I couldn't do more for her. Tell her how I would have loved for her to come to Canada and see the snow, how much she would have loved Christmas here!

She was 54 when she died.

Happier days

Me and my mom

My mom with Piet

Mom dressed up as a mafia guy for a dress-up at work. Note the mustache above the lipstick ;)

And the nails, of course :) 

Here is a piece I discovered in her belongings, in 2009 when I returned to South Africa. I type it as it is written.

She wrote it the eve of her birthday (her birthday was Nov 18) Nov 17, 2000

Dear Lord
I've overheard stories through my life, about the gifts of God. Some were humorous  some were really true.
But it crossed my mind,  that somehow, they were all meant to be. To learn someone else about something - or to forget
I've overheard funnies like:
When the Lord handed out noses, I thought he said ROSES so I ordered a big red one.
Or, when the Lord handed out brains, I thought he said TRAINS, so I didn't want any.
But when I sat down one night, I thought of myself
Maybe some was true
I thought:
When the Lord handed out tears, I thought he said bears, so I ordered a barrel full.
When the Lord handed out loneliness, I thought he said loveliness and I could not resist.
But when the lord handed out Chris, I thought he said BLISS, so I took it all.
And then when the Lord handed out Liezel, I thought he said DIESEL, and I had to run on it *INSERT

But, when, eventually, the Lord handed out hopelessness, I thought he meant youthfulness and that's when I failed. 
When the dates were handed out for death, I thought he said breath. But I could not take it.
But I have learned, and I have seen. 
Lots of given things not taken - and left there for nothing.
I should have taken all the right things you offered, and not have listened to what I've heard.
But I heard Your call, and I responded. Maybe I will have listened closely now: I'll be by your side.
What is the struggling for, why all the pain
When it was over - everything in vain
Why did I have to be the one there?
I don't know why he had to die then
Leaving me lonely and leaving me sad
This wasn't surely the life we should had
We were so happy, we were so young
Why did this have to go so very wrong
We had such big plans, we had our hopes
Then we were caught in life's tangling ropes

*INSERT
But Diesel, you drove me forth. Over mountains and sands.
You gave me meaning and love in life. You were my pride
and my only drive, which I will never forget - 
Always look at the stars - you will always find me there.
Remember the song - Somewhere out there -  and a moon
I will always be with you my only love -  ALWAYS! 
Your mother 


And here is one from a year after that : dated December 21, 2001

Tonight I thought again - how to go out of this life.
I feel invincible and incapable - Although I try!!
I try to do everything right - and it seems I fail.

I don't have the courage, and I don't know how - 
but what I do know, is what I do now.
I cannot do better, I cannot do worse,
but I do know that now I am not all that worth.
Nobody matters, nobody cares, and I am left with sorrows and terrible fears.
This is not life to me, so please take me, maybe I'll matter in some place out to be - 
I find this unbearable, and also unthinkable, but I can not sit here and be nobody at all.
I feel that my story is told in Joseph - right from the start, 
but now I am there where I need to depart:-

Close every door to me, hold out the world from me,
bar all the windows and shut out the light
close every door to me, take those I love from me,


for, nobody heard, but I have seen the land!
They thought it was nothing, but they'll understand - 
I have been lonely, and very sad
thought I thought, all just thought I was mad
I know Your promise, and I should upkeep,
But all I can do now is sit down and weep
This is not life here, and I should just wait
but all I can see is the impeccable bait
Please Lord, remember me, and don't oversee
that I could be better if I could just be
I will just wait now, don't know how long, 
but I will do better just where I belong.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had to write this to lay to rest my own demons. 

Mom, I love you. You will remain in my heart. ALWAYS. 

Your daughter
Liezel

The forgotten joys of radio. Talk radio

It happened quite by accident, that I rediscovered talk radio.
Shortly after having moved to my little house in the small town in the middle of nowhere, South West Saskatchewan, Canada, did I decide I wanted a radio in the kitchen. So I bought just a simple little clock radio to listen to while doing the dishes. Of course, being in a remote location, my little radio didn't receive any FM stations. So I started turning the dial and came upon 540am or CBC Radio ONE. It didn't take me long to start preferring talk radio to music stations. Such a broad range of subjects they covered! So many interesting people they interviewed! And of course, Vinyl Cafe Stories.

It reminded me of a time and place far away.
When I was a pre-schooler in South Africa, my mom used to drop me at my grandparents house before work. Me and Grandma spent a lot of time together, Grandpa was still working then. TV had come out in South Africa in 1975, but it only started at midday, and the programming ran until midnight, when the National Anthem played and an image of the South African flag showed. Then it reverted to the 'Test Pattern' and stayed on that bizarre circle with colored (later, when color TV came out) and greytone blocks.... but no matter, this is not about TV.

Grandma and I used to listen to the radio. In the mornings, there was news and weather. There was story-time for kids, when I would listen to the morning story. Then there were radio stories or 'dramas' - more like a radio version of a soap opera, I guess. That's where I got my name from apparently - my mom was listening to a hospital radio story and named me after one of the nurses.

We listened to different programs - there was a 'what-have-you' trade program where people would call in and with such-and-such to trade for such-and-such - wheelbarrows for screwdrivers, magazines for knitting needles, that sort of thing. Also an antiques show, an agricultural show, and others that I cannot remember. But I do remember the radio being a constant companion. Grandmas little radio came outside on hot summer days when we sat under the big old liquat tree in the back yard. It was inside next to the big old asbestos heater we plugged in on cold winter mornings (yes, you read right - asbestos heaters.....this is what they looked like)

It was on the diningroom table when Grandma was sewing, it was in the bedroom in the mornings.

That was the era before 'gadgets'. Grandma's radio was just about the only thing portable in the house, apart from a big old flashlight. The TV was a huge old tube thing that could not be moved, the telephone had a cord (the days before cordless telephones!)

The only gadget was the radio. You could listen to it without getting distracted because there WAS no image to go with it to distract you - you built your own pictures in your head.

Now we all have Smartphones and Tablets and computers and Sirius satellite radio. And Smart TV.
Maybe the old talk radio just reminds me of a time when we used to listen to the same programming. Nowadays everyones got their earphones plugged in, listening to their own stuff. Those days, we all listened to the same channel. We only had 2 TV channels those first years too. And the telephone was in the dining room - no private conversations with the family home!

But I do enjoy the simple joy of talk radio now. I like music, but songs just get....old. You don't learn anything by listening to music radio. So many songs are all about the same thing - love, being in love, finding the perfect guy/gal.... no learning. Now I listen to interviews with family members of Auswich survivors who had their grandmothers concentration camp tattoo, tattoed on them too... 3 generations honoring their mother, grandmother and great-grandmother this way.
I listen to talks with Indian chiefs about how to make reservations work. I listen to interviews with writers. I love the short stories on Vinyl Cafe, told so skilfully that you can see it in your minds eye.

There are interviews with scientists, Space Commander Chris Hadfield, and interviews with 12 year old chess players from the slums of Sudan. The other day they had a talk about memorable snowstorms where people called in and shared their stories about communities coming together in adverse weather.

And you know what? no ads! I do not have TV and haven't had TV in 4 years now. I do not miss the ads. Once in a while we would hook up the computer to the TV and watch some shows that we can stream through the internet, but the absolute assault of advertising really puts me off. The same ads play 4 or 5 times in a half hour program! I guess maybe people get conditioned to it, but I really enjoy my ad-free existence. I used to enjoy the History channel and National Geographic, but those shows seem so dumb now. Not the shows I remember. Everything is some 'reality show' which isn't reality at all, but just lame scripted dramas.

Give me my radio any day. As long as the dial is on 540AM.

Grandmas radio looked a bit like this one here.