Letting Go

WRITTEN IN AUGUST

I looked at the cupcakes I left on the dining table yesterday and started packing them one by one into boxes. 12 hours of dedicated work all gone. It was only when I looked at the melted mass of icing and chocolate on the 'Death by Chocolate' cupcakes that tears started rolling down my cheeks and I called out to God. Suddenly my resolve was melting just as the icing had done the day before in the heat of the day. The tears fell faster and my prayer changed to questions.... but who am I to question God when He has promised to look after me. My mind became a confused puzzle and suddenly it was no longer about melted cupcakes and our loss of profits but it became about my whole life which is crashing down around me. The tears flow faster and my questions to God are increasing with every thought that is galloping through my brain. Why is this happening? Do I deserve this? Have I not given enough to my family... my friends... my community... my church? Have I lived selfishly and only for myself? The wall I have built around me for so many years is eroded quicker than it was ever built. It has become so high, higher than my head, each brick put in place by yet another hurt or another step back. The things that have been left unspoken are running through my mind and I am wondering if I had been a different person, stronger, making myself heard, more assertive, if my life would have been different today?
Looking back in time, if I had chosen to stay in the workforce instead of deciding to care for my children by staying home with them, would we be better off today? I question myself and the decisions we made but I have no regrets. I have loved being a mother to our children and a wife to my husband. I feel in my heart that taking NiQi in and giving her a home with love and security was a good choice. But could I have made the wrong choice to be a wife and mother first? Should I have gone back to work full time after our boys were born? I think of friends who were in the same position as me and I don't know their thoughts, I cannot know their pain in their loss but for me, I know that I did what I felt was right in our family situation. I am glad I stayed home. I am glad that every day Mark needed me I was there. I didn't have to worry about asking for time off from work and I could juggle my days so that I could give equal attention to all our children. Mornings were exclusively Mark's while Matthew was at school.  Was home schooling NiQi through high school a bad decision for her?  I would hope not and I am glad that we persevered so that she completed her "A" levels.  Have I been too protective of our children?  Some would say 'yes', but I think that I gave them a good spiritual grounding and the foundation for life was laid to be strong.  What they do with that foundation and how they build on it, is up to them.  "Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it" Proverbs 22:6 -  I hold tight on this verse and believe that years of Sunday School, youth and home values will help them make 'right' choices....

but still, as my mind reels at where we are today and how hard we have worked over the years I am sad to admit defeat....

No one knows me as God knows me
No one knows the hurt I have endured.

No one knows the heartache I have felt at the hand of so many who have crossed my path.

Today I am more than sad, I am wretched, I am frustrated and I am vulnerable.  But at the end of today I will dry off my eyes once again and pick up the pieces of my life that have become tattered and torn and I will stand tall....why? because I am a survivor..... made strong by judgement and ridicule.  I am me... I am God's creation who realizes that I am not alone and my battles are already won.

Day 4 - Baking

Well quite obviously these posts are not running in daily format and I have to confess that I have had so much 'joy' taken from my life recently that I have very little happiness going on right now. I decided though I will think of something today that really gives me happiness to get rid of my humdrum feeling.

So today what gives me immense joy is baking. I have always loved baking and when our children were younger I baked every day. There were always cake or biscuits, scones or pudding to eat.... always a variety and never a short supply.

My specialities in those days were scones, milktart and chocolate cake. As something to do with the boys when they were at pre-primary we had an afternoon of baking every week. It was a time we could spend together having fun and they not only learned fine motor skills with l mixing and patting and rolling, but they  also learned math with measuring and taking instruction from the recipe.

I will never forget the day that we made scones and Matthew pounded his dough like he was making a mud pie. I told him to calm down, he had to treat it gently otherwise his scones would not rise. Our scones went into the oven and the boys waited patiently (another skill to learn) while they baked. Well when those scones came out of the oven who looked the fool for producing the flattest scones? Yes, it was me... and whose scones rose the highest? Yes, they were Matthew's.

Baking these days is not to feed my family treats but to earn much needed income. Every creation I bake and decorate gives me huge pleasure and satisfaction and I thank the Lord for blessing me with a gift, a talent, that I can use to help our family.

Day 3 - Matthew

Day 3 comes on the tail of day 2, posted earlier today but I am trying to catch up now...hehe

Matthew, for those who don't know us, is our eldest...our first born....our blue eyed boy and only because his eyes ARE blue and Mark and NiQi's are brown.

Matthew makes me happy...
He is one of those children who can make you want to tear your hair out one minute and the very next your heart melts with love.

We have a special mother/son bond that has stood the test of time.

He was always the child I worried about. Unlike Mark who was brave enough to stand up for himself and NiQi who went with the'flow', Matthew was very easily influenced as a youngster. Years of being under my thumb, youth and Sunday School, taught him as he got older, to stand for truth, honesty and loyalty.

He had a tough time growing up with cousins that bullied him and pushed him around and an infinite love for his brother who he fiercely protected. He matured early and was wise beyond his years. With Johan away so often for badminton, birds or work, he became my sounding board for advise. He listened and he helped me in so many ways.... looking back I realize that he had far more placed on his shoulders than any child should have had to deal with.

When he was 11 he saw and lived the turmoil our family went through after the death of his ouma and just 7 weeks later the death of his brother. He endured what no child should have had to. Yet through all of these challenges he managed to excell both in the classroom and on the sports field, earning an academic scholarship to St Charles College and playing for their 1st rugby team post matric.

In his final year of school a life changing event happened that affected the rest of his year and ultimately the rest of his life. His faith pulled him through as he carried this secret with him for the next 12 years, dealing with it in his own way. This secret was revealed in the most malicious of ways by someone whom he had loved and trusted with his life. Revealing it was the beginning of the end of the relationship. The trust was gone and with it everything else he held dear.

The last year has been the worst and the best in his life. A chapter closed that he never dreamed would close and a new one began, a better one.... one that has given him more peace and happiness than he ever imagined would come his way.

He is our boy, our son, full of integrity, striving for truth, putting the past behind him and looking ahead to a brighter, happier more fulfilling future. He is my happiness today....

Day 2 - Fruit & Veges

Well what would you know,  I am now a little behind with my 365 posts after power outages again. No worries though, we will stay positive and do a 'catch up'.

So Day 2 I am happy about our little vege patch and our fruit trees in the garden. I have plans for our veges in the future, but as a start we planted a few plants of a few different crops to see how they will fare.

We have had varying weather patterns from plenty of rain in spring to very little in summer. The spinach developed rust and we decided to start over by planting more, then it righted itself and started looking good. The spinach is great for salads, in quiches and for the birds.

We had a few peas and next time I will plant a lot more bushes because they don't produce huge crops. We used the very young ones in salads and the older peas in stews.

The chives have been brilliant for the fillings of my savoury muffins.... and if they are not inside they are on top for decoration with cream cheese.

The tomato plants haven't been as successful, except the baby ones which again we used in salads.

The couple of green chillie bushes have done well, producing more and more with time.... wonderful for soups and curries.

The brinjal plants battled with the drought but managed to produce 5 fruit. If they survive the winter I have no doubt they will do even better next year and I am glad to see they are flowering again at the moment which is a good sign.

The lettuces grew well and were wonderful for our salads. I would go to the garden and just pick a few leaves at a time so the plants could continue growing. We have left them to bolt and seed now and I hope from the seeds we will have many more plants growing.

The green peppers also produced a few fruit.... we will definitely plant more next season.

We have cabbages, cauliflour and brocolli growing now and I am excited to see four well developed heads of cauliflour, four smaller heads of brocolli and four tight heads of cabbage.

The spring onions have also done well and been used in both salads and soups.

We planted beetroot but it hasn't done that well... maybe because we planted them in the wrong area. We live and learn from our mistakes.

I am not sure the potatoes have survived as I see the plants have now wilted.... we will have to see what transpires there.

Then we have butternut, self grown from pips thrown on our compost. There are still a few growing and we have already picked and enjoyed some.

In summer we had guavas, chinese guavas and figs.... although the birds enjoyed the figs before we did. We are wiser now and next year will be more pro active about reaping the crop.

Now we have the pecan nuts, avocado pears and all the citrus trees. The grapefruit are the ruby reds and delicious for breakfast. The oranges are a mix, one tree has ready to eat sweet and juicy oranges and the others are smaller, less sweet and better for marmalade.. the lemons are knobbly but still useful for both baking and marmalade. The naartjies are still ripening which is good because when the oranges are finished they should be ready to eat.

So Day 2 I am happy and grateful for the wonderful fruits and veges we have enjoyed and will still enjoy.... next year I pray for bigger crops and more variety as we expand our garden.

Day 1 - 365 days of happiness

We have had so many soul destroying things passing through our lives in this last year that have caused pain and heartache, that I have decided to look for the good in every day from now on. Much like the '100 happy days' I did in Facebook a couple of years ago, I am going to do '365 days on blogger'.

Day 1 - Pecan Nuts

We have two beautiful big pecan nut trees in our garden. The one tree was growing before we moved away and one year we were sent up a bag of nuts that were reaped from it. They were more than likely from it's very first crop, and we really did enjoy them. We didn't get any more after that year which was most disappointing, and when we asked we heard that the monkeys were enjoying them on our behalf.

So this year I have kept an eye on the tree, and there were many days that we heard the monkeys up at the top near the trees. When exercising the dogs in the afternoons, the evidence lay on the ground of opened shells and half eaten nuts but we kept looking and picking up nuts as they ripened and fell to the ground. Every morning when Johan or Wilfred feed the horses and every afternoon when I go out, we gather nuts like squirrels storing for winter.

The second tree, although younger, seems to have borne it's very first crop this year with just a few laying around for us to find. Hopefully next year it it bear more.

As we look up into the almost empty branches we see just a few still hanging on, but we are really blessed by what we have gathered so far. I haven't weighed them but I think we may have about 10kg of nuts. Enough nuts to see me through the year of baking carrot cake, pecan nut pie and Christmas Fruit cakes later in the year. Yummmmmmy....

20%

Yesterday Johan drove NiQi up to Jo'burg for a clinic visit at Charlotte Maxeke and then on to Milpark for admission.

We have been planning this trip with great care for some time, as NiQi has not been well for many months now. When she arrived home after her last admission near the end of March, she said she felt like it was all a waste of time. My thought is that her resistance to antibiotics seems to be taking it's toll on her system and de-sensitizing her body before treatment each time only helps in so far as allowing her body to accept the combination of antibiotics given to her.

This last three months we have held on to the bitter end although I kept saying to her that if she wanted or needed to go earlier we would take her in a flash. In the middle of it all she caught a cold and had complete bedrest for more than a week. Thank goodness she had no fevers otherwise we would have definitely called her doctor and driven her up.

The beginning of May she organized 3 days away with her cousin and their respective fiancées which she loved to bits. It was definitely good for her to get away but the journey was taxing on her body and it took her another week to recover.

The oxygen machine has been running day and night and we have fitted it with the long tube so she can walk from her room to the lounge and the bathroom.

Most days she has lay in bed watching series or movies on her laptop, inbetween posting on Facebook for our baking and catching up on our admin.

The days that her fiancée had time off work she insisted on spending the time with him but at the end of it she would collapse into bed and try to sleep till late the next day, which she did unless woken by a call.

It has been very taxing on her health though and I have watched her appetite decrease as she kept insisting she couldn't eat any more otherwise she would vomit. I had to nag her to do her night feeds, though so often she couldn't do them as we have battled with power failures in our area.

Ever the superhero, she has never let on to those around us how much she is battling. I watched as she stood in the supermarket chatting to a neighbour as if everything is fine but then walk ever so slowly to the car afterwards because she used so much of her energy talking. She would sit at the market with me and chat to customers, always happy, always with a smile on her face, but as soon as they have moved on, she collapsed back on the chair sucking on her asthma pump and breathing controlled breaths to gain her strength back. She is a wonderful actress, she deserves an oscar every day for her performances.

So yesterday when she had her lung function test, it was no surprize to me that it was down. What was a shock though, was that it was down so much..... far more than I imagined.... far more than I expected. Sitting at 20%, a drop of 10% from her previous test, she is now not far off the 17% she was in 2012. We have a lot of work ahead of us if she wants to stay on the transplant list but we've done it before and we can do it again.

Fighting Chance

May was Cystic Fibrosis Awareness month here in SA as well as in many other countries overseas, and this year I have eased off on the awareness for many reasons, one of them being that I feel I am preaching to the same few people who know me and us as a family and those who really do care. 'Cystic Fibrosis' is a small percentage of population here and year after year it is the same old thing with very little impact. You know mankind is a very strange creature and so often it is only when affected by something in a personal capacity that they ever stop to think what someone may be going through.

When Mark was still alive I never said much to anyone about Cystic Fibrosis and not many ever asked about him or what was wrong with him. It was almost as if they didn't want to know. I remember at one point there was a rumour going around his school that he actually had AIDS..... I mean really, how ignorant were those that thought that or even said it.

With NiQi it has been different. She has lived longer, her struggles have been different and she dreams of a life...a real life where she can party with the best of them, stay up late, take long walks on the beach, do endurance riding on her horse, play netball again and just chill like everyone else her age.

Since her trust fund was started a few years ago, it has been CF, CF, CF.... so much so that I now feel that our friends and relatives don't want to keep hearing about  fundraising for her, so I have decided to step back and just let it be.

Since starting with our baking, my life has become busier with orders as well as the markets. Cupcakes have become our speciality but I don't ever say 'No' to an order. If I have to stay up all night to make a baking creation, I will do so.

One of my friends from school has been really kind ordering cakes from us for the children at her school. I made two cakes for her recently and when she came to collect them she asked about NiQi, as she always does. I told her that it has not been going well which led her to ask more about waiting on the transplant list. I explained the process but was reminded and told her, about NiQi when she was signing the Living Will forms. She sat for ages just staring at the paper in front of her, pen in hand, not doing anything else. Suddenly she turned to me and with tears streaming down her face, she said to me: 'promise me you will give me a fighting chance, promise me you won't just switch off the machines without letting me fight first.' I promised just that and with a lump in my throat I turned my back on her so she would not see how much it grieved me that she had to think about dying when she hasn't really lived. Our daily life revolves around CF.... some days it is minimal and others massive....it never ever leaves us, we do not get a break.

Death of a Bakkie

It is quite well known amongst family and good friends that we have been struggling with our vehicles ever since they were vandalized a few years ago.

It happened at a time when Johan was between jobs and the only thing he had to keep him busy right then was the CPF. He had many hours to put into creating documents that had never been available, putting structures in place and attending numerous meetings. He was so involved that the criminals heads turned and the police suddenly realized they may actually have to tow the line.

We believe as did the police, that the vandalism of both the astra and our bakkie were deliberate attempts as well as warnings for Johan to back off.

In any event both vehicles were literally given 'patch' jobs to get them up and running. We had a local chap in the area look at them both and at a minimal cost to us we managed to get them on the road again.

Once Johan was once again employed we had the astra sorted and at huge expense the bakkie eventually had a reconditioned engine fitted.

Neither of them have ever been the same though and if you read my blog you remember my tale of how the astra towed the bakkie for 500km when we moved here last year August.

Sadly the astra has been standing since December after the head gasket blew one Saturday morning shortly after going past an accident. We were towed home by some kind soul who lives in the area and here it has remained. I have put my foot down with a very firm hand about spending any more money that amounts to thousands on either vehicle. It is such a waste and I am disgruntled to say the least that the reconditioned engine fitted into the bakkie at huge cost, has never worked as it should have. It was supposed to give us an extra 100 000km on the clock and it didn't even last 2000. I give the chap who fitted it his due, he did come down one day at his own expense and he and his apprentice fiddled on it for most of the day. When he left he said to me it will never make another long trip but should be alright for town travel.

Well in the last month the town travel trips have become fewer and fewer as it has joined Smoky Robinson while it chugs up the hills.

My brother in law who is a very meticulous mechanic and always concerned for the well being of anyone's vehicle, offered to pull the engine out and try to give it mouth to mouth. So it was that last week he took a few days of his leave, bless his soul, and attempted to rescitate what has become a heart that skips s beat. The end result was much the same as one who may go for an operation and on the surgeon opening you up, declares there is nothing they can do but stitch you up again and give you a minimal prognosis.

I went after the market on Saturday to fetch our tired old lady, and as my brother in law tried to explain in a language I would undrstand, I felt I was back in the nurses station of McDonald ward when Dr Friedlander told me Mark had Cystic Fibrosis and he would not live past 5 years of age. The feeling was much the same and as I left I was instructed to let him know if I arrived home safely.

I did arrive home safely and as we chugged up the hill I was telling her, I know you can, 'I know you can', just like in the Thomas the Tank Engine books that I read to our boys when they were little.

So it is with a very heavy heart we acknowledge that as each day goes by and another trip to the office is undertaken, a little more life is taken away from her. I have no idea what will be in the future but we are survivors that's for sure and until then I trust that Gods timing will be perfect for us and all our needs.

All Things Burglaries

If I had written this blog 5 days ago, or even last night, I would have written it differently to today but it is what it is and only through prayer and spending time alone with my thoughts did I receive grace to accept the event for what it was.....another rung on the ladder of life.

In the early hours of last Wednesday morning, while the dark of the night was still thick and heavy and our household was at rest, we had intruders in our home. NiQi was sleeping in her bedroom, Johan was in our room and I was in the spare room, having moved there earlier that night..... and I am ashamed to say it, but because of Johan's snoring. I haven't been sleeping well of late, tossing and turning night after night, concern over many matters rattling around in my mind.

That early morning was no different to many others, I was wide awake. I had been up at 3, walking through the house to the bathroom. Nothing was amiss at that time. I returned to the spare room and continued to lie awake listening to Molly barking with an incessant yap. She had been doing this for a while and I was waiting for Johan to wake and be irritated enough to investigate. He was ill with the flu, hence the snoring, however finally at 4 am I heard him get up and go to the window and call through to Molly to keep quiet. He too went to the bathroom and went back to bed to sleep. I hadn't heard him return to bed though and it was almost, in my mind, as if he was still up, as I heard noises in the house. I heard 'him' in the kitchen and the dining room and lounge area, opening and closing doors and moving things around. I started getting annoyed by 'him' and wondered what it was he was doing and what he might be looking for. At one point I thought to get up and ask him but I didn't because I was waiting for my alarm to go off as I had an order for a cake that I had to bake early and I just wanted to lie in bed a little while longer.  The next moment, I heard NiQi talking to Johan. She had woken him up and was in a panic because she couldn't find me and the house was wide open. I called to say I was in the spare room and jumped out of bed. By this time Johan was outside calling to me to let our neighbours know we had just been burgled.

Taking you back a few minutes in time, NiQi was woken with a red lazer light shining on her face. She remembers the light being bright and putting her arm up to shade her eyes. It must have been her movement that made the thieves decide to leave. Her first waking thought was that I had shined the light on her face but wondered why I would use the lazer torch that she had on her bedside cabinet. She opened her eyes and cast them over to where the torch was and saw it still lying there. She got up out of bed and walked out of her room to the lounge extension and then the lounge. She saw my Bible lying on the couch and thought I was up already as I am often an early riser. She walked to the dining room and glanced to the right of her into the kitchen. The lights were off and she thought I may be in the bathroom. She walked on through the house to the section that we are still renovating and the bathroom. As she went through the door to the 'new' flatlet she looked to her left and saw the French doors were open and wondered why I would be outside so early in the morning and leave the house wide open. She checked the bathroom and I wasn't there. She went to the French doors and in that moment she realized we had been robbed. She went back through the house and woke Johan.

Johan, now outside with the torch had noticed that the palisade gate between us and the plantation was open. It was the only section of our fencing that was not electrified. The padlock had been cut off with boltcutters. I, in the meantime had phoned our neighbour 2 houses away. He did not pick up his phone. (We later heard he did not recognise the number I was phoning from and in his state of half sleep thought it might be a wrong number.) I then phoned our immediate neighbour and he answered me. I told him we had just been burgled and Johan needed backup. While he pulled on his clothes and grabbed his keys and torch, his mom got onto the radio and told everyone what had happened. Within minutes we had many of our neighbours here or in the plantation.

I in the meantime phoned  our local police station. I dialled all the numbers I had stored in my phone and not ONE of them were answered. I ended up dialling 10111, a habit I got into when living in Grootvlei. I told them I had tried our local police station but no one picked up the calls. The lady I spoke to said she would dispatch them. I asked her for a reference number, something else I learned from farm life.... never put the phone down before receiving a reference.

The chaps in the meantime had recovered some of our stolen items; a speaker from the one DVD player, Johan's angle grinder, a few smaller tools and my cell phone (the one with the number I most often use, and that my neighbour would have recognized...lol). All were items that were dropped along the way, most likely because the thieves were weighed down with all they were carrying.

The first of the police officers arrived, having been dispatched by his station and apologized for the phones not being answered. A busy night and changeover of shift were the excuses, both of which we have heard before from years of living in a vast rural area.

He took a statement from NiQi and later Johan. He phoned the dog unit and they arrived  soon thereafter. He also phoned the finger print unit but they have yet to arrive. We are disappointed the finger print department didn't come because from past experience we had plenty of surfaces they could have dusted for prints.  Over the years and the numerous burglaries we have had, we have learned what surfaces are good for lifting finger prints and in this instance there were many. Knowing too that prints found can only be linked to police records makes it much more difficult to catch criminals in South Africa. There is no link between Home Affairs and the SAPS. It is unfathomable as to why not, but it is the way it is.

Initially I was angry that once more our privacy has been invaded. This is not the first time, nor the second, not even the third or fourth.... we have been burgled more than thirty times in the time Johan and I have been together. Our children have grown up living through the different experiences.  This is however the first time we have actually been at home, inside our house, whilst the burglars have been busy going through our personal belongings. Some years before, NiQi's flat was ransacked and almost everything she owned was stolen whilst she was in hospital, Johan in PMB and me asleep in the main house. I didn't hear a thing that time and all our dogs were asleep in the house with me so they didn't utter a sound in warning. So we have I believe become professional victims over the years.

I know how easy it is for people to say things like: "At least you weren't harmed" and "they are only material things they got away with", and yes it is true. I am thankful especially that when NiQi woke, whoever was in our home decided to make a run for it. I am grateful they didn't get away with more. BUT more than anything I am saddened that another break in sets us back financially. With each and every theft in recent years we have not been able to replace what has been taken or broken. We no longer have insurance to claim from. It just means we have to work that much harder to replace some of the things that are gone. Money from our wallets, my brand new laptop, the tools Johan uses to work on our home, the food in our freezer and fridge and the toiletries from our bathroom..... yes it could have been so much worse than it was, but it was bad enough.

Yes, I am sad for our material loss but more than anything I am sad that there are so many desperate souls living in South Africa. The thieves who broke into our home last Wednesday morning were hungry.... so hungry that they ate the left over sausage from supper the night before and cupcakes in the paper cases where the teeth marks can be seen where they didn't peel them first but just ate straight out of the case. They used our Pick n Pay cooler bags and filled them with almost everything in our freezer - meat, fish, ready cooked meals I had made for my mum and cupcakes...a days' baking of cupcakes....profit for NiQi's trust fund all gone just like that. They cleaned out our bathroom of toiletries and a towel. Johan joked to our neighbour we should be on the look out for a well groomed person  or persons, with pearly white teeth, well groomed hair and smelling of lavendar bubble bath. 

Yes these people are desperate all right and I hope their hunger was satisfied if only for a little while. With all the rest they managed to get away with, I sincerely hope they managed to make enough money to keep them and possibly their families going for more than a month. We have had enough now, it is time our government did more to help the many so desperate they have to steal. Economically it is becoming tougher for salaried people to survive.... how much more so for those unemployed.

Looking into NiQi's room from where a light was shone in her face

Our almost emptied fridge

Our emptied freezer

The basket where our day to day toiletries were stored

The bathroom cabinet - almost emptied

The cupcake case with teeth imprints.  We kept it for DNA analysis but it was never taken by the police

the gate between us and the plantation - now also electrified