Freedom Day Tribute

“Ngizwa sengathi nginekaka esele lapha ngaphansi nesi, iyangincinza, ngicela ungisule bandla,” is the piteous plea from the extremely frail and thin pitch black lying on the hospital bed. Hitching up a fake smile (since all I want to do is run away and cry) I hustle over to her bed and reassure her I would be back briefly. Although I am nauseated at the thought of my task, I remind myself that this is a twice yearly event for me and for others it is their lives. I take comfort in knowing that I am making the slightest difference in this dying woman’s life and I that I am doing it in honor of a woman I loved above everyone else in the world.

Today my aunt would have been 41 and appalled at herself for getting old. But unluckily, it wasn’t to be. Not a single day goes by that I do not miss her. I miss her laugh, her loud mouth and her ability to turn EVERYTHING to a joke. If I were to tell her what the woman had asked me to do at the hospital she would have said, “Yho and you TOUCHED HER ON HER STUDIO?” without a trace of embarrassment.

Quintessentially young and blessed with the bubbliest personalities I have ever encountered, she remains my best friend, six years after her unfair exit from my life. Her wonderful daughter is a source of joy to me the likes of which I can never describe; calling her my child has been like a balm on the throbbing pain of losing my best friend.

Freedom Day means a different thing to everyone and to me it is forever entwined with the birthday of my aunt and a time to remember how wonderful she truly was. For the past 6 years I have celebrated Freedom Day by giving of my time to people living with HIV/AIDS. To be more factual, I have decided spend some of this day visiting those who await death, at the final stages of fully-blown AIDS.

This is by no means a selfless act or heroics. It serves as a reminder to me of the cost of the disease; the pain of watching someone you love die, being unable to do anything, the incredible loss of the security blanket you believed knowledge could be, the fate of being too stubborn to take charge of your life and test yourself when you know it is possible you have the disease, the cost of refusing the help of those you love and the eventual emptiness and apparent pointlessness of having to live your life without your compass.

Today I visited a hospital that had several AIDS patients. From my understanding it is no longer possible for hospitals to keep patients who aren’t sick of “anything” per se but rather whose bodies are systematically shutting down bit by bit rendering the person incapable of taking care of themselves. But this hospital, along with the aid of Home Based Caregivers is able to provide a dying place for these people, those whose families are not able to take care of them. But also, there are also others who are ill from severe tuberculosis or other HIV-induced/related illnesses.

As I cleaned the woman private parts today I continued nonsensical chatter while my heart shattered. Looking into her shiny blackened face I saw my aunt’s and felt (as though it was that day 6 years ago) a sharp pain in my chest. Tears stung my eyes and the woman attempted to smile, her dry cracked lips stretching thinly over her yellowed teeth, “Don’t be sad sisi, I know it is hard to look after us but you make us so happy by taking care of us,” she said in IsisZulu and it was all I could do not break down. My aunt had said words along the same lines as well as I helped her drink some water. I wanted to tell this woman that we should not have to be taken care of them. I wanted to tell her she was so selfish to have let this get so far. The same words I have said over and over in my head to my aunt. The words I could not say to her as I watched her die. The words that keep her memory tethered to me as thought she was still alive. Words of recrimination and unforgiveness.

As I remade several beds, cleaned the ward and talked to the women I wondered if this is also an act of penance for me. I know I have to forgive my aunt for dying. I know that, but so much of me is so angry; so angry that she didn’t think of me or her daughter. My logical side says of course she did, and then I become confused and angry again.

But whatever my reasons; whatever the motivation, I would like to think that those women I helped today felt a little better for my presence.

Happy birthday my darling aunt. I will always love you.

Happy Freedom Day Saffas.