“So sorry to do this to you on your birthday.”
“Oh, well, Dad, if it were not for you, I would not have a birthday at all!”
He chuckled and wished her well for the rest of the day as he left the car.
That was the first of many visits and tests and finally came the oncologist. The doctor spread the x- ray on the light-box. “It’s very large, I’m afraid. That mass in the right lung. I find it hard to believe that you’re still walking around with that much cancer in your body.”
On the drive back, her usually quiet dad began to speak. “Well, I can’t complain, you know. I’ve had many years, good years.”
“And you’ve seen so much change in those years, Dad.”
He nodded. “The telephone, TV, and Cars!”
“I’ve always wondered,” she said, “Just how did Grandpa get into the car business? Cars had just about been invented!”
“Well, you see, he started by working for a business called Wagon Works. They used to import wagon parts from overseas and build the wagons in South Africa. When the owner retired, he closed the business, but he encouraged Grandpa to open his own business. So that’s what he did. Then when the car was invented, Grandpa began repairing cars. And as for me, that’s when I left school and began working in the business.”
“But then came the war….”
“Yes, I was still a teenager then. I tried to join up with a couple of my friends but we were turned away – too young.”
“And after the war came apartheid.”
“That was when they forced us to move from our land. Your mother and I had to move. Long before you were born. That was when we moved to Maritzburg – different town, different job. It was a struggle, but we were never in debt, until we built the house.”
Her father continued. “I never thought we would ever afford to buy a house. But George – he was a school principal – he said the government was releasing some land for teachers to buy, but no one wanted to buy it, so he said to me, ‘Why don’t you?’ And I said, ‘But how can I? And even if I could where would I get the money to build?’”
The fields lay flat and bare on either side of the road, the silence interrupted by the occasional hum of a passing car. “And then I learnt that Bika was a builder. He was one of our neighbours in the flats.” She remembered the block of flats they used to live in and the busy street below with shops and busses.
“Anyway, the government agreed to sell the land to me – at 11 pounds per month and two years later Bika began building the house. It was slow; we built only as I saved enough money for each step.”
“I remember coming to see the building, Dad, and then finally moving in. I was five at the time. I remember we had no electricity for the first couple of months.” She had grown up in that house. She loved the view from the veranda and the banana, orange and peach trees in the backyard.
Soon the journey home ended and soon, just three weeks later, they said a final farewell as her father went home to his heavenly Father.
A wise minister used to say “Dead noses smell no roses.” So give the roses now – while you still can.