I was a caesarean baby, born in Durban, Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. Mummy often used to say, ‘It took seven years to make you after having your brother, John, so little Lesley, you are a miracle child.’ Daddy was an engineer and inventor, and Mummy was the top mathematics award winner in high school.
Between my age of four and fourteen we moved sixteen times – into hotels, flats, and houses – down the coast, inland, along the beachfront, etc. and I attended twelve different schools. I know not why. I learned quickly how to make friends, and how to bid farewell to friends. Through all the packing, unpacking, and then a few months later packing again, our homes were always filled with background music and foreground laughter and powerful, anchored love from both parents.
Many obstacles landed on my path during my childhood; some witnessed, and some experienced:
~ ‘Lesley! Hold Miriam’s arm! Miriam, don’t pull the knife out because all your blood will pour out of you!’ Mummy screams as a knife protrudes out of my nanny’s chest.
~ ‘Lesley, your little friends next door have been killed; all shot in their ears while they were sleeping,’ Daddy says as he swoops me up and squeezes me tightly.
~ ‘Screech! Boom! Crack!’ A motorbike smashes into my little friend, Meraki, right next to me on the road, and then she somersaults into the air and slams into the gutter.
~ ‘Lesley, your Daddy is going to live in a flat, and we are going to live with Granny,’ Mummy says as she rolls up Daddy’s ties, while tears start pouring from my eyes.
~ ‘Come here, little one,’ the ambulance man says, as I slip and stumble amongst pieces of a surfer, who has just been chewed up by a shark.
~ ‘Please. Please. Give me a big wave to ride on back to shore! Now! Please!’ I beg the ocean as its current pulls me northward, away from all the other swimmers.
~ ‘It’s okay, sweetie,’ the policeman says, after I see big pools of blood and flesh, including an eye, laying next to a car that crashes close to me and my friends in the park.
. . . to name just a few.
And then, at twelve, I meet my boyfriend and current husband, Bruce. And then, at fourteen, one morning at sunrise, Mummy leaves our fourteenth-floor flat, walks along the beach, out along the north pier, and jumps into the ocean. I know not why. Shortly afterwards her body is washed up along the coast.
And then, at sixteen, during a border war, Bruce is conscripted into the army, and soon he is driving a mine-detonation vehicle ahead of his platoon.
And then, several years later, my very cherished brother-in-law, Michael, is found gassed in his car, and then my half-brother and police officer, David, is murdered while off-duty; shot nine times, and then car bombs start exploding all over the city streets because of political unrest.
During traumatic times, the empathy within me radiated outward towards all those who faced obstacles on their paths; all the healthy innocent people, as well as all the mentally and emotionally ill people. This is still so today. Also, during these traumatic times, my infinite, committed love for the beauty of the land, the ocean, the animals, and all the people who work hard to keep our world thriving, happy, and safe, remained unscathed. This is still so today.
Perhaps my love is powerful and anchored because this stone, through all its rolling, did gather a lot of moss in her heart.
