Читать книгу I Choose to Live - Letshego Zulu - Страница 11

CHAPTER 5

What they don’t tell you

Nobody prepares you for the day your soulmate dies. People tell you what to expect when you get married, or have a baby, but no one talks to you about death. They don’t tell you what you are going to have to do when you lose your husband, especially not when you’re in a foreign country.

Making my way out of the hospital in shock, seeing the love of my life’s cold body, devoid of life, of energy, of his radiant smile, I am completely numb. I can’t connect with my mind, my breath, my legs as I slowly walk away. My mind seems to have stopped processing anything other than the minutiae of the present moment. Left, right, left, right. I place one foot in front of the next. Time stands still. My throat has constricted. I cannot speak. No words will come out. I’m struggling to breathe. I don’t know how I manage to make my way back to the car; I know Richard must have walked beside me, but I am unaware of anyone and anything. I find myself in the seat of the car and dissolve into an aching weep, surrounded by onlookers hovering in stunned silence.

I’m taken to the police station to report Gugs’s death. Everything is surreal – an out-of-body experience – and yet I’m also acutely aware of the present. Like I have zoomed into a terrible nightmare. I walk into the station and, noticing my grief, a Tanzanian woman walks up to me, taps me sharply on my forehead a few times and says, “Pole sana” (“I’m so sorry”). I am startled by her gesture. I feel like a robot, as though automatons have taken over my body. I find myself handing over Gugs’s possessions, the stuff in his backpack, to the police: his head torch, wallet, running gloves, an extra beanie, a water bottle, his GoPro camera and a power bank. One by one, objects are placed on the desk. Is this all that remains of my husband?

I proceed to fill in forms. While busy with all the admin, my phone rings. I see the name of the caller light up my screen. It’s Gugs’s dad again. Oh no! I haven’t broken the news to the family yet! I can’t face it. I would rather fill out forms, see handwritten letters of the alphabet make marks on the pile of pages. I can’t speak, let alone to Gugs’s dad. I turn to Honest and hand him the phone. “I can’t tell Gugu’s dad, please tell him,” I plead. He takes the phone and walks down the passage, still within earshot.

I hear him say, “You are speaking to Honest Minja, the owner of the tour company that Trek4Mandela is using for the climb up Kilimanjaro.” There is a long pause. “I’m sorry to report that your son Gugu Zulu has passed away.” I hear him repeat this a few times in different ways to the person on the other end, confirming that it really is Gugu Zulu, the professional racing driver from South Africa who has passed away. I can’t bear to think of his dad on the other side. The call ends and Honest walks back to hand the phone to me. As I take it from him, it rings again. It’s the same number. Somehow, I gather up the courage to answer.

It’s Gugs’s mom. “Letshego, is it true?”

“Yes, it is,” is all I can manage. The line goes dead.

My heart plummets. I feel like I’ve failed both her and her husband. I have failed Gugu. In fact, right now, standing so bereft in the police station, I feel like I failed the entire world.

After the documents are completed, Honest informs me it’s time to leave. An unidentified man joins us in the car. We head back to the hospital, this time not to the emergency room, but to the morgue to officially identify Gugs for the police photographer, the man who’s been travelling with us. I’ve never been inside a morgue before, let alone ever had to identify a dead person. It’s a cold, sterile room lined with metal fridges. It’s freezing inside. The morgue assistant opens a fridge door, pulls out the tray with my husband’s lifeless, naked body on it. I feel like I’ve seen this in some movie before. It’s unbelievable that here I am living it. The sheet barely covers his body, the one I have known and loved for so long. It feels wrong to see him so exposed, so vulnerable. I bite my lip … I want to ask the assistant to “please cover him properly”, but I numbly remember it won’t make any difference anyway. Gugs is gone. Gugs is gone. I hear the words in my head but I can’t quite grasp their meaning.

Slowly I walk up to his body. Despite being naked, he looks so peaceful. But his mouth is still wide open, his head turned. I ask the assistant if they will close his mouth. He says, “Yes.” Then I ask if they can please turn his head as well – somehow, it feels right that Gugs should have his head straightened. The man walks up to Gugs, holds his head and cranks it really hard to the side to straighten it. I literally jump back in a fright. I didn’t expect him to do it at that very moment. I walk back up to Gugs and, almost apologetically, I touch his shoulder. Almost immediately I regret it. My hand recoils as it lands on his cold, frozen body. Just a little while ago the skin on his hand had felt soft and supple. I know now without a doubt that he is really dead. He is nowhere to be seen, just this cold and frozen form. He is dead.

The drive back to the hotel is a blur. On arrival, the staff is there to welcome me back, all of us in tears. I manage to take a shower and eat. The blur of the day extends. I go through the motions of being alive.

The one thing I have always prided myself on is my communication skills. In the midst of this terrible trauma and grief, I somehow find the ability to draft a message to some of our closest friends to inform them of Gugs’s passing. His parents, sister and my mom know, but many of the friends we regard as family still need to hear before media reports go viral. So I carefully draft the message. “Dear family and friends, I’m sad to announce that early this morning I lost my Gugs on Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania …” And then I start to send it out. It gives me something to do.

It’s Monday, 18 July. Later I will remember that it’s Madiba’s birthday. Right now it’s just Monday and my husband is dead – Gugu is dead. The words bounce around in my head. None of this seems real. The rest of the day passes in a daze. Just before midnight Liyanda, Gugs’s sister, and my close friend and business partner Khethiwe Mlangeni arrive from South Africa to be by my side.

I am so deeply grateful to see the two of them. On their arrival, I spend the next three hours recounting the story of what happened. At this point, I have been awake for nearly 40 hours. I’m on autopilot as I relay the nightmare. Just after 03h00, Liyanda gives me some kind of sedative to calm me down and help me sleep, even though sleep lasts only until 06h00.

Monday to Wednesday go by in a further hazy blur. Unable to sleep much, unable to process much other than that Gugs is no longer alive, I do the bare minimum while Liyanda, Khethi, Richard and Honest help with the logistics of getting all of us – including Gugs – home. Two days after Gugs passes, I receive a message from one of his close childhood friends about a traditional ritual she suggests I do in order to bring his spirit home. At first I am reluctant to listen. The idea feels foreign to me. My reluctance is eased when Liyanda tells me that she has also received the message, so we decide to heed the call. The instruction is that we need to find a clean, white and unused cloth, take it to the place where we believe his spirit departed from his body and, while holding it in our hands, speak quietly and gently to convince Gugs’s spirit to come back home with us. She instructs us to tell the spirit that we know he has passed away and that we accept that. We need to speak to his spirit throughout the trip, informing him about each part of the journey, until we get home. We follow the instructions.

Messages of condolence continue to stream in from all directions. The media calls every other hour. Being in Tanzania, I have yet to realise the extent to which Gugs’s passing has touched people back home and around the world.

At no point in the first few hours and days do I ask God, “Why? Why did you do this to me? Why did you have to take him?” This seems futile. Of course I’m not going to get an answer. The most challenging moment comes when it’s time to fly home. I can’t shake the feeling of detachment, like I’m leaving something precious behind even though we carry the white cloth, speaking to the spirit of Gugs each step of the way. We fly from Kilimanjaro airport to Dar es Salaam and spend the night in the capital. The following day Khethi and Liyanda work hard to keep me distracted. As we board our flight home late afternoon, the two of them spot the coffin being loaded into the hold of the plane and make sure that I don’t see it. On board the aircraft, I’m greeted by a flight attendant who immediately says in a low voice, “Mrs Zulu, I am so sorry.” At this point I realise I can no longer avoid my reality – my grief is no longer private. Our whole country is mourning the loss of a great man, my man. And even here in a foreign country people are aware of my husband’s passing. We don’t speak much to each other on the flight – there’s nothing to say. My heart has been ripped out of my chest.

As we touch down at OR Tambo I look out the window to see a motorcade that has been sent to pick us up on the tarmac. Now I break down. They struggle to get me off the plane. Finally, once all the other passengers have disembarked, I manage to move from my seat. My legs somehow take steps forward. One at a time, one after the other. Left, right, left, right.

A short prayer is held at the airport with family. Seeing those closest to me for the first time since the tragedy breaks my heart into a million pieces. I am bereft. Gugs and I left home just over a week ago and now I’ve returned with him in a coffin. Seeing his mom and dad, in particular, just breaks me.

The next few days fly by in a daze. All I remember is the sea of people showing their love and support by coming to the house, calling, sending messages and flowers. There are flowers everywhere. The love and support from the country, including the government, touches me deeply.