Branded Blog

A year ago, two things happened.  I packed up my life and moved to Cape Town, and mid packing my uncle died.  I only had one uncle, but had I had more, he would still have been my favourite.

He died the day before my baby brother and I were going to fetch him and put him on a plane to visit his son & daughter-in-law and baby grandson in Durbs-by-the-sea.  My mom phoned to tell me, and it didn’t seem possible that real life was so unfair and sad. Too sad. When I phoned the barefoot mountain man who was in Cape Town waiting for me to arrive, he let me cry and just sat with me on the phone.

My uncle was the gentlest person I knew, and so happy to see you whenever you found a space for him in your life it could make your heart hug in tightly. He smiled, and you were happy you came. He laughed and showed you pictures of his grandson with so much joy and pride he might pop, and you just hoped that someday someone would remember you that way – as the most loving person they knew.  He didn’t get to meet his second grandson who is on the way now, but I’m sure that my cousin and his lovely young family will pass on that deep well of hugs and love that his grandfather was. He would have sparkled with delight at his good fortune to have such riches in his life. He always sparkled in his own quiet, warm, open-hearted way.

I postponed my trip down to CT by a few days and joined my family for our last drive down to the Free State to say good-bye.

Much later, after running that terrible gauntlet of emotion that comes with death and families, I finally did get on a plane and moved my life to a new city to be with the man I love. And it was all such a bitter-sweet thing.

The barefoot man and I had a  ritual when we spent time apart last year (which you do a lot of when you live in different cities) – we would each have one of two little red notebooks with us and we’d write to each other in them as things occurred to us, as we missed things, as we remembered things, as we thought of things we wanted to ask or wanted to remember. And we’d alternate the books – so I’d write where he left off last time and vice versa. And we learnt so much in our time apart. And we also learnt that we wanted so much to be together.

And on the day that my uncle died I didn’t write anything in the little red book I had with me, but my barefoot man did.

“I know you are strong, but I wish I could be there holding you as you sleep. I am glad that I can make a home for you to return to at least and long for you to return. When death comes close it reminds me to live passionately and fully and I’m grateful that we have embraced this journey together so fully. Life is precious and precarious – not to be wasted on hesitation and fear. You are here with me and we are still climbing. Sometimes it helps not to look down but when you do, touch the rope that still connects us. I love you.”

I don’t know a better way to say it than he did.  But I do know that despite all the challenges that come with change in all it’s terrible and beautiful forms (and the list from this last year is long and I’m sure tedious, so I’ll spare you the detail), it’s worth doing to be with people you love, to make them laugh, to hug them close, and to let them know that they are what matters, in the end. Nothing else really does.

And I know that my uncle would have liked my barefoot man, would have been happy that he makes me happy. And would have welcomed him with a big hug. And I know that he would have been his new grandson’s favourite grandpa.  I hope we all remember to be like him – to be just who we are, nothing more and nothing less. And to make our main goal in life to love those we love fiercely and gently, and be happy every day that they are happy.

The arc of change is hard, but beautiful.

I’ve been in Cape Town for a year already. How time flies.