The saddest day

That day started out like any other. There was no hint, no foreshadowing, no premonition of what was to come. Isn't that mostly the case?

Werner and I packed picnic stuff, cameras, chairs and were on the road before the sun lifted on the horizon. Excited chatter filled our car... looking forward to one of the biggest airshows in SA in many years. As the sun rose, we were seated in prime spots on the airfield, drinking thermos flask coffee, wrapping ourselves in blankets on this chilly morning.... 1 October 2011. Our lives, about to be changed forever...once again....with no hint of what was to come.

The airshow was amazing. A whole war scenario complete with rescue, was played out for us. The ground shook with pretend explosions that sent chills through my body and thoughts of the unbelievable horrors of war. It occurred to me to think: I am so thankful not to have lived through a war, not to have those kinds of images burnt into my mind.

As these thoughts and scenes played out before me, my children were on the road to Witbank with their dad and Cream Puff. They were spending the weekend with the Prof. As always, a sadness tugged at my heart. How is it, I wondered for the 100ths time, that I didn't choose to leave, but that I am forced to give the children up every alternate weekend?
Early morning smses from them to us, confirmed that they had seen the helicopters flying overhead on their way to us for the airshow. The delicate thread linking us to them in a common sight, made me smile.

Werner and I recorded the airshow, thinking in glee how we could share this footage with the children, oh how Arno would have loved to be a part of this and see it all. In the meantime, the stage was being set, and their lives were about to be shattered.

The first inkling of trouble came from an sms from Marinda: Mom, please pray for our safety. Veld fires have broken out on the farm and there are people out fighting them. The area hadn't received rain for a long time, and these fires break out in the grass and spread. They look innocent, but we knew from bitter experience that they can be deadly. Just recently we had prayed for families who had lost loved ones in such fires.
A quick whispered prayer, but my thoughts turned to the 2nd series of explosions being played out before me. The airshow was being repeated, and we were filming, desperate to capture these moments to share with the children.
My phone rang. The caller id showed me it was Arno. I could hear crying and an hysterical voice saying .... stopped breathing...don't want him to die.....
The explosions made it impossible to hear what he was talking about. Ironic that such news came with all the fireworks on our side. Shouting back into the phone I told him to wait, I would phone back when I could hear again.
Suddenly the explosions were no longer "fun", the filming irrelevant.  Why was it taking so long, so very long to stop.
The deafening explosions finally fell away, and I was able to phone:
Arno's sobbing voice: Mom, dad has stopped breathing, I don't want him to die. My heart broke. Pictures floated through my mind...I was helpless to help my child in his greatest hour of need.
Piecing together bits of the story, I gathered that Arno was with his dad fighting the fire, that Cream Puff and others were trying to resuscitate the Prof, and finally...that the girls were not in the same place as their father.

Praying and crying, I phoned Marinda, asking her to stay calm but to go to where Arno was on the farm. I told her that the Prof was being taken to the hospital. Then I phoned my cell friends asking them to pray.

We began to pack up, moving faster and faster. Ice was starting to run through my veins. What ifs starting running wildly through my mind, just like the fires were spreading on the farm. What if the Prof didn't make it? What if my children got caught in the fire...all things too terrible to contemplate.

Our friends were making calculations faster than we were. Our car was too small to fit all the children in, should we need to fetch them from the farm. We would have to drive the hour trip home, in the opposite direction, for the other car, before starting the 2 and half hour journey to the children. These friends jumped in their car and drove towards Pretoria before we had even started putting all the pieces together. They would meet us half way, to swap cars with us and take our car back home.

As we were driving out the gates of the airshow, when the phone call came. The phone call that I had never wanted to hear, not even in my angriest hours. Cream Puff phoned me herself: Yvonne, he didn't make it. Suddenly, we were no longer dealing with the prospect of taking children home while their dad recovered in hospital, but with 3 children who had just lost their father forever:  half orphans, children who were sitting alone in a house on the farm, waiting desperately for news....

Suddenly time, which had been moving so fast, began to drag by in slow motion. I pray never to have to  repeat such a journey again. It felt like it would never end. I wanted to take my children and hold them, keep the world of hurt away forever, but like flood waters rushing to lower ground, the inevitable was rushing toward them, about to flood their lives in such a way that they would never be the same again.

Swopping cars, we finally go onto the road to Witbank. The children had been sending frantic smses to me, asking me how far away we were, and what the news was. I didn't tell them the awful news I knew. No adult there to support them, I kept the rushing flood waters at bay for a short while longer.

Cream Puff arrived back at the farm. One look at her told the children exactly what they didn't want to know. Their father, had not made it. This person who was vibrant and alive that very morning, who had made lunch with them, who had meticulously packed that lunch away in the fridge after he had received the news of the fires, who had made just such plans in the event of fires, went calmly into action, sending the girls to look after the horses, and taking his son with him, with confidence...this person, no longer walked and talked.

I don't have the words to describe the shock, the disbelieve, the non-understanding that hits you, when you think but a few hours before, he had been alive and well. The feeling of disbelief, which overtakes you on day 1 and day 2...fades with time, as layers upon layers in the form of hours,days, months, eventually years, are placed between your last images of the person alive and now.

 It took us another 40 minutes before we would be there. I had never been to the farm, could scarcely take it all in. This morning, he had walked here, with the children, with the idea of spending the weekend, dreams of riding, plans for the future.... all that - wiped away in an instant.

The children were just broken heaps of little people when we got to them. We spent some time, not really knowing what to say or think. It sounded like the Prof had smoke inhalation and then a heart attack. The death certificate eventually simply stated: unnatural causes.

Driving home in the gathering darkness, the tears just fell and fell as though this sadness would never end.
The floods had overtaken us, we were powerless to stop the raging waters of grief.Would time heal, I wondered as we drove on and on in that dark night?