at our childhood farm.
By now we are sitting in the morgue, the only attendant is very busy and suggests that we sit on the hard plank bench provided; no backrest; wait your turn. It is close to six o’clock. We have nothing to say to each other. The silence is burning into my brain. I want to see her. I want to take her home one last time to sleep in her bed, to snuggle up with her. I think of the many times I have dressed for tennis on a Sunday morning early. The rest of the family still fast asleep, I tiptoe to each of their bedrooms, watch their even, rhythmical breathing and thank the heavens that they are safe and at home where I can touch them; hold them; hug them; enjoy them for as long as they are under our roof. With their feet under our table, they are safe.
The minutes tick by into what feels like a grim eternity. At last, around seven-thirty, it is our turn. The waiting over, we are directed to a room with a glass window. Behind it lies my beautiful child on her left side with her torso twisted, probably the way that she fell on the Tavern floor. Those long elegant legs are slightly bent, her right shoulder touching the cold grey slab with her arm bent inwards so that her watch glass has shattered. Time has stopped and later when we retrieve her belongings, the hands are stuck at ten past twelve. Her watch on the right arm? She must have wanted to remind herself about something. The leather plait is there around her left ankle, and the sandals that we had bought at the Grahamstown Art Festival are still on those precious feet - they have taken her wherever she wanted to go. Her denim imitation patch shorts are saturated with dark red blood and her simple short-sleeved navy cotton jumper is hanging loose and relaxed with dark blotches all over it. Her brown hair is tied back in a loose French plait, her profile visible without moving the gurney. Casual strands of brown hair frame her still serene face with its up-turned nose - sleeping peacefully. Soon I’ll wake up, and this will all have been a nightmare. Oh God, let this end. I can’t stand any more.
Yes, there is no denial now. That is my girl, and I need to touch her, to hold her,
“No!” says the attendant “that is not allowed.”
I want to protest, to insist, to scream. I want to push the official out of the way; anything, anything to touch and hold my child. Then I see my husband’s body shaking, sobbing, sobbing quietly and I repent in silence.
Ray takes us to Lyndi’s flat to fetch the bakkie, then Ray and I return home. My husband and Billy visit Dave and Quentin in Groote Schuur Hospital. They fill in the details of the unfolding picture. Her flatmates Dave and Bernie accompanied by Lyndi and Quentin had taken Bernie’s sister, Olivia, to the train station to chug home to Port Elizabeth on holiday. Then they decided to show Quentin their favourite haunt – The Heidelberg Tavern. Now Bernie lies in the morgue with Lyndi. Dave and Quentin lie in the hospital fighting to stay alive; Dave with half of his stomach and a kidney gone, and Quentin paralysed from his waist down to his toes. Into what a raw deal their fifteen minutes at the Heidelberg turned. All Lyndi had hoped to do was to show Quentin the place where university friends gather to enjoy the diversity of races; where the sign “Whites only” has long disappeared; where Black singers, musicians and patrons are welcomed by proprietor and patrons alike. A victim of the activism she espouses, not a protagonist as I had first imagined.
Quetin on the Heidelberg Tavern floor
Quentin had met Lyndi the year before in Gauteng where they had struck up a kinship that had resulted in many long telephone hours and much laughter. He’d soon begun to use Ants’ pet-name for Lyndi which is ‘Sweetness’. In his pain and disorientation, he keeps asking for Sweetness. When the full reality of what has happened hits him, Quentin goes silent. The loss of functional lower limbs and such a ‘sweetness’ are, he later tells me, sometimes too much to bear. In those first tortured weeks of phantom pain and loneliness, he wishes that he had died with Lyndi.
I hear 18 years later, that his wish did become dear Quentins’ reality last year; may he relax in peace with Lyndi.
Ray and I get back home to find that my eldest brother Ian has already arrived from Johannesburg, sleeping arrangements and collections at the airport arranged by our efficient friends on the telephone. We confirm the news that it is Lyndi who has died and there seems very little else to say. I go to my bedroom and en-suite bathroom, shutting the doors so that I can howl with anguish and raw sorrow in privacy. I keep flushing the toilet to conceal my screams of grief and pain.
My husband drags a mattress into our room for Ant to sleep on; it is unnecessary as we lie there hugging each other.
“Oh God this is too awful …” “I can’t live without Sweetness …” “At least we still have each other …” “Oh, God … Oh, God … Oh, God …”
There is very little sleep to be had that night as we toss and turn, groaning and crying intermittently.
Saturday is marked with the arrival of flowers, cards, telephone calls, and of course, family arriving from all over South Africa. Criminal Investigation Officers spend many hours with my husband. I am not able to deal with their questioning and prying details. The media arrives with cameras and notebooks wanting pictures of Lyndi to piece together the story for South Africa and the world. Lyndi’s friends come in groups to commiserate. Embracing the taller men, I can hear their heartbeat. Oh, if only I could listen to Lyndi’s heart beating. The thought triggers another flood of tears. Fortunately, we are all sobbing so much that my pain is not the focus of attention. It doesn’t seem to matter that we howl and howl. I am comforted to know that she is treasured and loved by each one. Even the stoics can articulate something that they appreciate about her. Food arrives from out of nowhere, and everyone seems to be fed and cared for without my interest or concern for them. My mind seems to focus on one thing only – the pain of my loss, and my precious child lying still, too still, on the cold grey gurney.
By Sunday evening, my parents and all four brothers have arrived, as well as my husband’s mother and two brothers. There is a sense of merriment and celebration with jokes and stories, jesting and wit. It is the way my family have always dealt with being together, but now it seems to trivialise my agony. I feel so irritated by the laughter and jostling that I stay in my bedroom much of the time. Ian, my eldest brother, who is to take the service, calls us together to plan the funeral for the next day. He suggests that we participate as much as we feel able to. To break-down would be natural, Ian says, and we should not fear it but feel safe with support and love embracing us; in so doing, we will find healing and acceptance. What a grim way to spend our wedding anniversary! My husband wants to share the Life sketch, Ant feels comfortable ‘thanking their young friends’ for being present, and I want to pray.
This night I spend screaming at God for the loss of my child. Sitting in the bathroom with the doors closed and flushing now and then to muffle the sound, I cry and howl some more. Why did she have to die? And in such a cruel way!Did she know or have any inkling of what was happening to her? According to the news reports, she died before any help was available, but we do not have enough detail, only the fact that at the morgue her body seemed to be in the position in which it fell on the impact of the bullets. That, at least, is a consolation. All night I struggle with the prayer for the next day.
Monday morning 3 January 1994 eventually dawns, and, with extreme weariness, I drag myself to the kitchen to find some tea. I have not eaten anything since receiving the news two days ago and am now feeling the effect of virtually no sleep and no food. I have little strength or energy to face the day, a day of colossal activity; living on adrenaline and cortisol is par for the course. We take Lyndi’s favourite patchwork dress along with a satin pillow she had made herself, to the mortician. We also provide a single rose by the name of Peace which her Granny Fourie has asked to have put in the casket with her. We select a plain pine casket with rope handles. Because they
