Okay,
continuing with my train of thought …
So, here I am
and here you are. We’re alive for now – you in your small corner and I in mine –
but we are not the same and we were not in control of our beginnings. We had no
control about being born, where we were born, our gender, the pigmentation of
our skin, colour of our hair or eyes, tall or short, bright or dim. Nor did we have
control over being born rich or poor, the tribe to which we belong, the
language we speak, the continent on which we drew our first breath, our lineage
or genealogy, or even the religion which we were born into. No control
whatsoever. We are who we are and there’s very little, if anything, that we can
do to change these things.
The other
day I listened to a speech that Rob Hershov gave at the Biz News Conference. He
said that he was privileged to never ever have known what it’s like to go to
bed hungry or know whether he would have food the next day. He never worried
about having money to pay his expenses, never worried about having a job or an
income. He, however, went on to make a brilliant point, but I got stuck right
here. Not that many of us can make that kind of statement. Living life in a
different pair of shoes makes a huge difference.
Every day
while going to work or returning home, you will see beggars on the street
corners or standing at the traffic lights with their boards declaring their
misfortune. All sorts of critters. I call them the liquorice allsorts people –
men, women, black, brown, white(ish) – all begging for alms from the privileged.
Their relentlessness irritates us. Some want help for food or shelter, some are
simply too lazy to work and some need to feed their addiction, get their next
fix. I know one of these characters and you can’t miss him. He seems to be
everywhere with his scruffy, smelly, unkept presence. We and many others have
tried to help him change his life, but no matter what has been offered, he
always returns to his addictive ways. No matter what the conditions are – hot,
cold, rainy, plandemic or flu – he is there somewhere, begging for money.
Here I am,
barely clinging to life, literally hanging on for dear life, and
he’s blessed with eternal life. Nothing will cause his demise, I’m sure.
I read an
interesting article the other day in which the writer said that we all die
twice. Our first death is when life departs and leaves an empty shell – whether
it’s disease, an accident, old age (I should be so lucky), suicide or choking
on a pretzel. Life … gone.
The second
death is when the last person who knew you, or about you, speaks about you for
the last time.
This is
quite interesting and here’s my concern. Some people are fortunate enough to
have eternal life. The history books are full of them – men and women who will
be remembered for eternity for their greatness or their remarkable inventions
or their impact on civilization and how they contributed to the world. But what
about those evil fuckers (Oh crap, so sorry. Last one, I promise) like Hitler, Mussolini,
Stalin?? It made me squirm that these despots and dictators would be
remembered, having left a haunting trail of devastation and annihilation,
memories of evil incarnate.
Anyway, I got
sidetracked here. Getting back to my topic, we knew people who, like Rob admitted,
had lack of nothing, except a child. No amount of money, medical intervention
or prayer could rectify this problem. So, they adopted, and finally had the
opportunity to fill this gaping need.
Then I saw
a beggar, standing with his all too familiar board that read: 5 children, No
job, No food, Please help. Through the years we have helped many people who
were in desperate need. We often repaired dilapidated cars for people who could
not afford repairs. We even bought a few “cheapies” (old cars), repaired them
and donated them to needy families. So, yes, I do feel sympathetic towards
their needs. And currently, we find ourselves needy due to the destructive rulership
of the biggest arsehole ever, Cyril Ramaphosa (another evil bastard whose name
will live on in history).
No, I’m
sorry. Do you still think that life is ultimately in your control? Oh, you say
God is in control? I get so tired of people trying to slip that one in like a
well-lubed dildo. I can’t disagree more. Let me tell you another story to
illustrate my point:
While we
had our mechanical workshop there were a lot of homeless, jobless people who
would come looking for employment or handouts. We tried to give the genuine
seekers something to do, no matter how trivial, for some money. One particular guy, I’ll call him Van, started working for me. He
was quite bright, hardworking and loyal, but he was a serious alcoholic. He started
with simple jobs but eventually, seeing his potential, became one of my
apprentices. He always had a dog – some flea-infested, one-of-a-kind crossbreed
from Mars. On a few occasions Van came to work pissed and I would chase him
away. Then he would sit outside the gate crying until Tanja arrived and plead
his case with her, begging forgiveness. Being believers in that period of our
lives, I believed that Van had been sent from God to try my patience and make a
better person out of me. Yeah, right.
After another
one of his drunken episodes, I sat him down to give him a good lecturing. Through
his snot and tears he told me the story of his life, but I’ll share the short
version:
They were
seven siblings born into a poor family – their mother an alcoholic and their
father a jobless wanderer. Living off scraps and going to bed hungry was the
story of their lives. One day, the mother decided she’d had enough and hung herself.
The children were taken to live with their grandmother, who ran a shebeen from
her house. A short time later the cousins also came to live there, leaving the
poor woman with eleven children to care for. Van was about three or four years
old and said that he remembered drinking the last drops of liquor from the
empty returned bottles. One morning the grandmother didn’t wake them as usual,
and when they went into her room, they found that she had died during the
night. So, they covered her lifeless body and locked the bedroom door. The older
children continued to sell liquor, pretending that all was well, but eventually
suspicions were aroused and the welfare removed the children, sending them to
different orphanages.
Van remained
in the orphanage until he was eighteen years old, but during his time there, he
went to stay at a wealthy couple’s home for a few days during the Christmas
holidays. He was about twelve years old then. They had a festive party and
invited family and friends to enjoy the enormous barbeque with them. Van, who
had never seen so much food in his life, gorged himself then vomited, then
gorged himself again and vomited again. He was returned to the orphanage the
next day.
Now there’s
a lot more that I can tell you about this man and we took care of him as if he
was family. Van was not an attractive person, but somehow managed to hook up
and move in with a professional prostitute. One day, he ran into the workshop,
smiling from ear to ear, and proudly announced that he was going to be a
father. What the flying f***? (kept my promise). I spat my coffee about two meters
far and laughed at the absurdity. I pointed out the fact that more men had been
through her than cars through the Hugenot tunnel, and that the probability of
it being his child was ridiculously slim. But he was adamant.
I lost it,
totally lost it. Good, decent people are unable to have a child of their own
and along comes an alcoholic, impregnates a hooker and boom, life is created. Turns
out it was about her fifth child already.
About a
year passed and one day Van came marching into the workshop with a small child
in his arms – a carbon copy of himself. All I could think was, she’s f****d for
life.
That is why
I said in the beginning that we have no choice or control over what life gives
us. We live with the cards we’ve been dealt and very few are dealt a royal flush. We walk in different shoes and few are those who receive “eternal life”
and will be remembered or spoken of for generations to come. If you have a lot
to be thankful for, don’t forget about those who really can’t help for who they
are or the cards that they have been dealt.
Consider yourself very lucky, indeed.
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