LUKY;
SLOWLY but inexorably the huge mimosa tree in my front garden was dying and I was very sad about it. There is too much death around us as it is.
My physically disabled friend over the road from me lost her faithful servant after the latter contracted a bout of bronchitis. The funeral notice of one of my husband's dearest friends appeared in the newspaper about the same time, and the fact they had lost contact years before did nothing to alleviate Sean's sorrow. The baby of a friend died in its cot; and over the past years how many of us have lost our nearest and dearest to cancer or car crashes, to mention but two causes?
A tonic
Sometimes it seems to me that there is nothing left to laugh about, but that feeling continues only until my second son crosses my path.
When my son was four, he looked two, and had the self-confidence of a man of forty.
"I've had it," he'd complain, or:
"I'm a sick man", or:
"I don't like moms what gives their kids smacks."
Or;
"Take it like a man", when he smacked back, after which he was generally swift to add:
"All right, let's be friends and shake hands."
I am deeply indebted to my son for the thousands of times he has cheered me up with his words, all delivered in the accents of an Afrikaans dignitary addressing English-speaking constituents at a rally.
No tree man
Of course he was still totally uninterested in trees, as I was at his age.
As the years went by, however, and the world kept changing around me I began to crave for some permanence. This sense of permanence I now received from looking at thick old trees like the one which was then currently lifting its dead arms towards the sky.
In Zambia, on the road between Chingola and Bancroft, there is a tree which in its form resembled the suffering Christ on the cross so closely that every person to whom it was pointed out exclaimed in disbelief. You had to view it from a certain angle to see it properly, but once you have you never forget that tree.
Happy fool
The man who wrote:
"Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree," was a soul-mate of mine.
To me, a tree is like a good person of the kind that used to be an adult when I was a child - my father, my grandfather, the doctor, the priest. I never knew fear when they were around. Each time one of these tree-like men died, I felt a little less secure, a little less protected.
The utter loss I felt when my own father died put an end to my attempts to lean on others for comfort and guidance. I realized only then that the time for spoonfeeding was past and that I was an adult who had to stand on her own two feet.
Moreover, there are children who need my protection as I needed that of my forebears. A small thing like a dying tree must never weaken my determination.
Yet I could not help hoping that my mimosa tree stayed alive until we moved to another house.
Catherine Nicolette
Ah yes. The mimosa tree. I remember her well. I would climb out of the window at 5am in the morning (too boring to go by the front door, and mom or dad always heard when I escaped the house early).
I would go and dance under the tree, twirling around looking at the yellow blossoms, or lie in the green grass looking up at the sunrise and dreaming. I loved that garden so much, it was a little paradise.
Years later I went on a pilgrimage of the places of my youth. When I came to the house, I immediately looked for the joyous site of the mimosa tree next to the front gate, to be met by the sight of some palm trees with spreading fronds. Very South African, but not the same as the gracious grande dame which the mimosa tree had played to our family. Dad used to host picnics for us and the neighbourhood children under the tree, and all the kids used to love coming to the Whittles. Two months ago my cousin reminded me of the parties Dad used to throw for us. "Plates of fruit and biscuits, tables groaning with rainbow layered jellies and custard with peach slices your Dad made - some people just know how to throw a party. Your Dad was one of them."
Shrine
When I went walking around the yard, I visited the shrine area I had made for my brother our family had lost through miscarriage. I visited the peach trees, the fig tree, where the grenadilla bush used to be, where our mulberry tree used to be, where our grapevines used to be. Most were gone. Oh well. Then I went to the numerous graves of our pets, beloved dogs, cats and birds. We children used to have full funerals for each pet when they died, reverently burying them in lined boxes with many tears. The little crosses I had made and put up on their little graves had long ago ecologically returned to the soil, but I still remembered where each one was. A little friend, many years ago, had questioned why we neighbourhood children held Christian services for our departed animals. She said to me, "How do you know they're Christian?" After much thought at eight years of age, I replied; "How do we know they're not?"
Sweetest little boy
As I walked past the fig tree, I smiled as I remembered my brother. He was the sweetest little boy, nine years younger than me. Being The Big Sister, I often used to beg for the opportunity to babysit him, and mom and dad would let me carry him around the house and garden. So as he grew older, I kind of felt proprietary over him - he was my brother. I used to smother him with kisses, feed him chocolate treats behind my parents' back, and talk baby talk to him by the hour.
Blonde curls
He had the most beautiful blonde curls which soon grew beyond his shoulders. One day, when he was three, Mom took him (without consulting us) to the barber, who plied his trade on his previously unshorn locks. When Mom and my brother were there to pick me up in the blue Volksie after school, I was horrified to see a little unknown with a Number 1 Welkom haircut in the back to greet me (short back, invisible sides).
"Where's your hair?" I wailed. Mom said airily, "I cut it." "How COULD you," I said, and reached out to give my brother the usual big sister baby brother kisses.
He leaned back in a macho stance, standing on the back seat, his elbow nonchalantly on the top of the seat.
"You can't kiss me anymore," he announced gravely, "I'm a man now."
And as mom's eyes met mine across the car, we had one of those moments women have from time to time; when the men in their lives - incomprehensible, requiring much work and not always satisfactory - for that moment, utterly delight our souls.
Viva second sons and brothers!
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