Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 128, March 2020 | Page 18

ROAD RUNNING
of tea, which she always made in a teapot and not in a
cup. Recalling that through all of her struggles, it was
God and the church who were her constant and most
trusted companions.
“Ouma never really settled into the role of mother-
in-law. Your father always allowed her to interfere in
decisions that we should have taken as a married
couple.” My mother expected Ouma to be more
sympathetic and support her decision, but she was
reading the old woman all wrong, and was told if she
intended to go through with the divorce, it would be
best to find somewhere else to stay as quickly as
possible. “Andrew says the children stays here till his
return, and until you can find a suitably stable home
for them.”
The last stipulation was never to be, because it took
Mom years to find a place she could call home, and
in the end my mother became a peripheral figure in
our lives. Meanwhile, my father came home to finalise
the divorce and then went back to Windhoek as soon
as it was done, leaving us in the care of Ouma while
he continued to party with his new single status… not
that being married had stopped him before.
the wonderful pain to come. The best decision I ever
made was when I decided to run, and here I was
running towards destiny, on my way hopefully to a
better future. infidelities, but she never admonished him for them,
either. “Your Mom could have tried harder than she
did; he would have changed if she gave him more
of a chance.” To me, it was a case of my Dad being
Peter Pan, and just not wanting to grow up and leave
Neverland.
In 1981 my mother decided that after eight years of
marriage, she could not take any more of my father’s
love for ‘good times’ and loose women. The fact that
they had two children to think about probably kept
her in the marriage longer than she should have been
there. “It was never just one thing that drove us apart
but many. He did not show remorse for his actions, he
seemed to think of them as normal. The choice was
mine to make, either live with it or give up and go, in
the end there was only one thing to do.” Divorce was
the only answer she could find. Ouma grew up in a small town, where everybody
knew your family. She left school in standard 2 to
do domestic work and help out with the family’s
finances, as this was expected of her, and she had
no choice but to grow up quickly. A black-haired
woman, small in stature but firm in resolve, she was a
strong character and stoically met the challenges life
threw at her. She moved to Cape Town on her own,
without family or friends, when job opportunities were
becoming scarce at home. Married life would follow,
but the infant deaths of her first two kids would leave
deep emotional scars. Her family would be forcibly
moved to the Cape Flats by the Apartheid laws of the
country, and then she had to raise her two children
alone after her husband passed on prematurely. Life
would trip her every so often, but she kept getting
back up.
My father was working in Windhoek at the time, far
away from our home in Cape Town, busy partying up a
storm with the locals. He did not put up much of a fight
to stop the end of his marriage. Instead, he decided to
ask Ouma to make sure that Mom did not take his kids,
and that she left the wedding ring he bought.
My ouma was not impressed with the actions of
her daughter-in-law. She believed a wife’s duty
was to stand by her husband, no matter what his
indiscretions were. She never approved of Dad’s
18
“God tests our love and faith with the struggles
life puts in front of us, we must always pray for His
guidance and strength to see it through.” Ouma would
always remind me of this as we sat at the kitchen
table when I came home from school, enjoying a cup
ISSUE 128 MARCH 2020 / www.modernathlete.co.za
For my brother Andy and I, it seemed that my Mom
was there one day and gone the next. Life would
never be simple for us again. Neighbours and friends
would recall how Andy changed during this period
from a fun-loving adventurous spirit to a more intense
and driven child. He still had the ever-present, light
up the room smile on his face, but it seemed the joy
had left his eyes. He has never said so, but I think he
may have taken the blame of my parents’ divorce on
himself, and they just never took it back from him.
Two Oceans 2016