My Woman

I know a bit about women. Actually, I know a bit about a woman – Mama. Synonymous with beauty, spring is known to awaken in her smile; summer sounds through her mouth.

The strength of this woman has more than often clothed my inabilities, insecurities, weaknesses and imperfections with excellence. I am a young man of this stature today because Elizabeth Mokgadi Masiya did not shun the responsibility of being a faithful carrier of this very hand that types this acknowledgement. This woman, head over heels in love with my father, danced to the melody of love to record the steps called Masingita. Oh, but I am just one of the other three miracles that happened in their boat.

To a mother, a woman who sacrificed many experiences so that I today can stand without an inferior complexity or an identity crisis, thank you for firming that hand in discipline; raising that voice in correction; and hugging me in comfort. All this has to do with the fact that I never saw you waver in faith in God. Sure, I heard your sobs and saw your worries, but constantly, you insisted that I look at this Jesus Christ. Today, I have a relationship of my own with God. Jesus Christ knows my address.

I am not afraid of taxis, buses, trains or my feet because I have been on all those forms of transportation on the back of my mother or with my hand in hers. I have passed through the alleys of Marabastad and know the streets of Pretoria because she was confident enough to teach me to walk them. Chores are not just in my vocabulary, but they are activities attended to because Mama was diligent enough to instruct me in that regard. Pots... I don’t want to talk about those. The kitchen becomes a “happy meal” because Masingita has a spatula in hand - she taught me how to tie an apron. She taught me to never fear neither the rising nor setting of any sun. Thus I learned to never fear any man, but to love all.

I have seen the extent to which a man can be loved. I am convicted that a man deserves to be loved. I saw love in all her glory. Love knows me. When all marriages could not be perfect, hers was excellent. The One who brought her and Papa together is perfect and He’s excellent. Because of what she portrayed, there’s a girl reading this blog right now and smiling. She is reading this...

Though I can’t recall my days as an infant in her arms, somehow my heart is assured that I, perhaps with a child-like faith, believed that I could be the height of the beauty in her eye when she would glance at me. The photographs of me in her arms attest to that. Then there are those photos we never took but are living out right now. This book is a part thereof...

THE RIGHT TO MOURN was written with her in mind. It was written to her – a work she could always treasure. My heart is restless because it wants to write to her while she is still alive.

With this brief breath, I honour women. I honour a woman – Mama, My Woman.

-Mzilikazi

Daughter, Finally I Cried

As it seems that manhood deprived me of the opportunity to grieve; as it seems that your mother should cry alone and be weak while I stood emotionless, apparently as her support; as it seems that I insisted that your sister should move on when she wanted to mourn, it seems I myself should have mourned you.

Three years on, I still wonder: what if you were here with me? What if I had little more days to show my love to you? What if I stayed at home on the day of your passing and stopped the angel from taking you? What if I told you moments before your last breath that I loved you? What if I died in your place? All these what-ifs are only but what-ifs. You are gone, yet you remain.

Daughter, I miss you. It is now that I am strong enough to cry; I am bolder to let them tears roll down my arrogant cheeks; I am brave enough to admit that I was not enough, it was not enough, that was not enough. Why did you have to go so soon?

It was brief, very three-moths brief. One moment I held you tight and laid your tender cheeks on my firm shoulders, the next moment I dropped a few particles of sand in your grave. It was brief, three months brief.

I was still planning to love you one day. I was busy making sure that you had supper the next, and I was caught up in paving the path ahead for you that I forgot to tell you when it mattered most, that I love you.

Rest my girl, peace I will have now that I braved a tear, finally, I cried - yes daddy cried.

- Gift Nkuna

Your Fatherhood

At times, I wish I knew your face or even had a photo of you I could point at. I have heard so much about you, but none of it is from your own mouth.

I have come to a point where I have made peace. I don't wonder about you no more simply because among all the men that failed me, you were the first.

You could have protected me. You could have taught me how to ride the bicycle. You could have given my story another angle. I would not be talking about being a single mom, an orphan, a rape survivor or even a university drop-out. I know that some of it you would have prevented but you failed me.

I don't hate you, instead, I want you to know that though your name I don't know; though your surname you failed to give me,
Mama laid the foundation quite thick and the experiences that life has thrown at me have made me a woman that is glad that you can't claim any of it because this Glory belongs to God, the Father who adopted me along the way to nowhere.

In his house I have found what you or any other man has failed to ever give me: LOVE IN UBUNDANCE.

- Khensile Mirranda Gomba

My Right To Mourn

In a world where acquisition is the only honourable pursuit, a world that only recognises and rewards the powerful, why should I leap for joy at the discovery of a Right that suggests that I curl up and assume a position of weakness?

It is so well documented and properly instilled in me that "tigers don't cry". I know my role. It has been hammered in me by those I respect the most. Those who have been kind enough to let me survey their walk have explicitly taught me that I as a man should forever be found in a position of power and authority. As they say, "leaders don't cry".

Why then should I rejoice because of a Right that goes against all that is sound to me? Why should I defy the teachings of my elders; the teachings of the veterans of this game called life?

But I have found out that maybe there could be some perforation in my stern beliefs because as I closely study the lives of the very same men I have built my solid foundations on, I find that maybe my definition of mourning is not as correct as I have assumed. I discovered that the very men I respect have a chapter of this subject in their lives. It is just not so flamboyant as the other chapters that speak of their boldness.

I found out that one of the men that I have followed and whose teachings still order my steps to this very day had a session of mourning. His name is Jesus Christ. When informed about the passing away of His dear friend Lazarus, the Bible points out that Jesus "wept". A man who divided time; a man whose life has scientists baffled to this day mourned, even if it was for a brief moment.

Great statesmen, the likes of Mandela, Cher Guevara, Malcom X and Martin Luther King had sessions with mourning. They might not have mourned the death of a friend, but they mourned what was snatched from them and from generations to come. They mourned for hope lost and for freedom that was in chains. They mourned and wept bitterly. I ask myself then if I should be so cold to this Right?

Mourning, I have found, is not an instruction that suggests that one needs to curl up and begin to feel sorry for oneself. Far it be from that. Mourning suggests that you take time to understand where you are; understand what is happening; shed tears if you must; tear your beard out if you are Ezra or Nehemiah.

Business expression would term it "situation analysis". Mourning is in essence a "reality check"; an opportunity to recoup; to be one with your emotions and surroundings; to pay respect and celebrate the life and contribution of the person/item you have lost. Then after, when all questions have been answered and when all emotions have been calmed and peace reigns, draw up a plan to move forward.

It is only after Jesus had cried that He raised a man from death. It is after Mandela, Che Guevara, Malcom X and Martin Luther King sat down and understood what was lost that they journeyed forward to do what they were born to do. It is only after Nehemiah had wept that he had the plan and energy to rebuild Jerusalem's walls.

These same giants we go to to regain strength; these individuals whose lives puff up our lungs would leap for joy at the mention of this Right. It is therefore not perceptions of weakness that should cloud our minds when we hear of this Right, but it should be the glory that comes after that should give us the courage to embrace this Right. We have THE RIGHT TO MOURN.

I have THE RIGHT TO MOURN.

- Joy Bongani Mathebula

He was a father

He was a father to many sons
A father to fathers who father sons
He had no name and yet he was my name
His life is a legacy beyond the grave
Even if you take away his presence you can never take away his face
etched and mounted in the heart of my eye
His voice resounds with the waking sun
I sat on the wings of the morning conversing with the winds of mourning about a love lost to the seeing eye
I sat on morning's wings mounted and strengthened by a love I have found in the memories of your laugh
At the awakening of your death I found a handle on strength and cried in the offence
The only thing I lost at your death is fear: the fear to live a life poured out to the glory of the Father to the fatherless

Part Two

When sickness had but caused the giant that my father was to crumble to a frail-looking figure on the bed of death, something in me refused to remember him like that, and it somehow hurled me back to how he was when we were brought up as children in the Masiya household. Most of the memories of him at optimum strength seized my pen even as I sat alone in my room closing my eyes to the reality next door and drawing from yesteryear with the ink that has captured some of the verses you now hold as part of THE RIGHT TO MOURN.

Another reason for writing THE RIGHT TO MOURN was to honour the father I’ve know all my life. In honouring him, I saw and still read of myself having rhetoric conversations with his life imparted upon me and that still resonates in my perception on life, whether it be whole or in part.

Paying homage to him has meant that I undress myself and look at him. To an extent, it meant shedding off certain parts of him while embracing others so that I can be this ultimate man he aspired to be, while being me. It has also made me marvel at sonship and desire for sons who still have their fathers to cherish their relationships with them and model out hearts that will cause an impact even in generations following.

In honouring my father, I spoke to the man that I am becoming. I am speaking to the man, male or female, that you are becoming. I now am becoming, consciously so. And so, I wrote THE RIGHT TO MOURN expressing gratitude to this man who I saw do all to be the best he could be to us his children.

…that is a man.

Part One

One of the reasons that constitute why I decided to publish THE RIGHT TO MOURN is that I didn't know what to say to a friend, as comfort, who had lost his father. I didn't know what to say, let alone how to even say the very thing I was to say. An awkward and less desirable moment would occur based on that.

 

By then, I was loosely writing poems and random notes about what was happening; my father being sick; how I was dealing with it; and my preparedness should I lose him. I did not want to lose him, but I did. And so, with the poems grouped and put in order, a manuscript I formulated and emailed it to him. His response: "I know of others who could use with this. Thank you."

 

And so I endeavoured to write more and send to close friends, especially those who had lost loved ones within their immediate families. The response was more or less the same – the majority of my friends also knew others who needed to read and hear what I had to say about my own process. In the end, though THE RIGHT TO MOURN was me and my own process, it in turn came to be about mourning and loss of a loved one, your process included. I know how sometimes the short poems in this anthology can be confrontational, especially if you thought you had dealt with the particular loss.

 

THE RIGHT TO MOURN was never written to suppose a never-ending process of mourning, but it was intended to let you know that it's ok to mourn, and by mourning, healing is realised and arrived at; that by the token of mourning, it hurts less when you think about the one who's lost; that ultimately, their lives can be celebrated, this, without remorse or unending pain.

 

Mourn. Be healed.