WITH GRATEFUL THANKS FOR HEALING LOVE AND KINDNESS

We have been looking at Stewardship at St Paul's this past month, and we have looked closely at community - our church community, and the wider community of the country in which we live, and our stewardship of people and relationships.  This moment of remembrance that I had last week, reminded me of God's care for us, and how he sends people into our lives,  sometimes unexpected people, to help us, heal us, restore us.  If you have had an experience like this, someone you would like to thank, please share it with us.

This is dedicated to my stepmother, Malie, who cared for my father for eight years before he died, and has been a loving, caring and undemanding member of our family for 48 years. I am so grateful to God for bringing her into my life.

Last week, I heard a song that used to be sung by Francois Hardy, decades ago.  I used to be a huge Francois Hardy fan, I think I really identified with her music, and her look, and everything about her. So I looked her up on Google, she’s now in her early 70’s, still lovely looking, still a special person, and then I started remembering the time when I was such a big fan ….

It was a very dark time in my life.  I was nearly 21, living on my own in a hostel, supporting myself on whatever I could earn working in medicine depots at night and weekends, and studying.  The hostel supplied meals, but as I was away from home for up to 18 hours most days, I missed a lot of meals, and often went hungry.  I also had no money for transport, and walked everywhere.   That’s probably why I’m such a good walker still today!  I had friends, but they all lived at home, and I was terrified of becoming a nuisance if I went round their homes too often, and of them pitying me.  So I lived my solitary life.

At that time, my mother had been ill for about 5 years;  she was only diagnosed with brain cancer two years previously, had had surgery and some radiation treatment, but I think the doctors  realized that it was just a matter of time.  Of course, in those days they didn’t tell the families much.  I had last seen my mom the previous December, when my dad had been transferred to another little Karoo town, and I had packed up the house for them to facilitate the move.  My mom was not well, but okay, and came to the station to see me off with my dad when I returned to Johannesburg to resume my studies.  My dad was not a good communicator, and I couldn’t afford phone calls, so when he called me on 28 April, two days before my twenty-first birthday, to say that my mom had died, it took me totally by surprise.  I didn’t even know she was back in hospital!  To say I was shocked does not come near to describing how I felt!  It was the most traumatic thing that ever happened to me – I adored my mom, and to make it worse, I was so alone and so poor, I just felt totally bereft.  

One of my bosses lent me the money to fly home, and I spent a week with my dad and 3 younger brothers, before coming back to my lonely and very sad now that my mom was gone, life.  I lived for Christmas, when I would go home and see my little brothers again, and saved up a little every month for my train ticket home at the end of the year.

Then, at the beginning of December, less than 8 months after my mom’s death, I received a letter from my dad to say that he was getting married that coming weekend.  In a total state of panic, I went to visit a friend’s mom, a dear Jewish lady who always looked out for me, and we talked about how I should handle the news of my dad’s remarriage so soon after my mom died.  We decided that it was a wise move on his part, as his own health had for years not been good, and two of my brothers were still at school, so at least he was making provision for them by marrying again.  So, I was quite calm when I phoned my dad to say that I would not be able to be at the wedding, but would only come home for Christmas.  However, he made it quite clear that he did not expect me to be at the wedding, and told me that unless I accepted his new wife and her family (being her sister and her family, as my stepmother did not have children of her own), I need not come home again.  I was stunned! My dad didn’t want me home, and I literally had nowhere else to go, the hostel was closing for the holidays, and I would have been on the street! 

As harsh as that sounds, in fairness to my dad, he was a guy who really hated confrontation, and I think he felt guilty about getting married so soon, but did not want to get into a discussion about it, hence his very stern words to me!

Anyway, with no other option, I caught the train home and my dad fetched me from the station with my little brothers in tow, but as lovely as it was to see them, it was not a happy home coming for me.  A strange town, lots of strange people who all knew each other, I felt more alone than ever.  And so I spent endless hours playing my two Francois Hardy albums, over and over.  I think everyone must have thought me very weird and annoying, but no one said anything, because Malie, my new stepmother, treated me with love and kindness and endless patience.  She was totally un-judgmental.  She never once tried to make me do anything, or asked me to stop playing my endless sad music, and allowed no one else to put any pressure on me. 

And I thought last week, when this memory came back to  me, that in the 48 years that I have known her, I have never thanked her, never told her how much her treatment of me then, and over the years, had contributed to my healing, to my growing into a more socially acceptable human being than I was back then.  So I phoned her, and thanked her, and she said, “Ah my dear, you have always been  my own child”. 

She is eighty-nine years old, and frail, and I am so grateful to God that he gave me the chance to say thank you to her before she goes.  She has been a true mother to me and a grandmother to my children, and now a great-grandmother to my grandchildren,  but she never forced anything on us or demanded anything from us, she was always just there, kind a loving.   I  love her and thank God for bringing her into my life.

Linda Galliard October 2016