WHEN I arrived for my first lecture of the new semester at Vista University, I found a group of students clustered around the notice board. I shouldered my way in and saw the examination timetable was up. Mixed feelngs of terror and delight fought for the mastery in my heart. When I started studying for my BA with Vista, I was so obsessed with the idea of one day striding down some auditorium, bedecked in a black gown to the strains of 'Gaudeamus igitur' that tears would come to my eyes at the very thought.
After four years of grafting that gown was the very last thing I was worried about. There is something about burning the midnight oil in the pursuit of knowledge that destroys the appeal of frill and frippery and forces us back to the nitty-gritty. As I stood in front of the notice board, twenty-nine students were hoping to stride down that auditorium to the envy of their fellows and I was thinking that if I managed to pass, I would breathe a sigh of relief.
The sad part of it all was that my mother was not there to see me. She and my father couldn't send me to university because we decided that my brother should have the tertiary education in the family. After his graduation at Wits,* she said to me: 'All the time we watched, your dad and I were feeling it should have been you down there.' Something about her expression then, made me say: 'You'll still see me down there one day.' When I started studying twenty-odd years later, she was so excited. She even reserved a special corner in her living room for the future picture of me in gown. She followed all my doings with the keenest interest.
Two years before my completion of my BA degree, she got Altzheimer's Disease and went into an old age home. The last time we met, she shrank away from me. She didn't even know me. It was not half the fun dressing up without her to bask in the achievement. And I really would have liked my graduation photo to feature on a spot in the living room she no longer possessed. Ah well, that's life for you.
The sad thing was that my mom died during the time I was writing my final exams.
Catherine Nicolette;
We were so proud of Mom studying. She had been at home for much of the time when we were children, going to work the times Dad got so sick and nearly died. She kept the home fires burning and a roof over our heads in those dark days, and always encouraged us to get tertiary education. My brother and I dared her to do one year's study as she was bemoaning the fact that she was facing the empty nest syndrome. Mom went ahead, and completed one year's study. Then she told my brother and myself that the bet had been completed, and that was that. Oh no, we protested, now you carry on and get your BA. She did and won the award for Best Final Year Women's Student in the then Vista University. Mom continued studying through Honours and Master's Degrees, and went on to complete her Doctorate. Mom started studying at 46 years of age, completed her doctorate at the age of 59, and teaches today as a university lecturer.
The fallout of having a mom who started a second career at 46 years of age and went on to a whole new life as professional educator after that is that I do not consider 50 years of age to be any age at all. It is only the start of new things. Last week a young girl looked at me, and murmered 'Golden years.' Startled, I asked, 'I beg your pardon?' She repeated the phrase, and then informed me that as I had entered the golden years pre-retirement I should apply for pre-retirement benefits. Confused, I retired from the fray. She really believed that fifty was old. My mom and my gran taught me that no woman is ever old. My gran, known affectionately and with great respect to us all as 'Ouma', was cutting out exquisite and detailed wedding dresses until well into her seventies. Only illness and Altzheimer's stopped her marvellous career in fashion.
Mom still teaches at university. I intend to follow their example, that no woman, including myself, can ever be boxed into a category or catalogued according to our biological age We each are too unique, too wonderful, and too young in soul to ever only be the sum of the days we have been privileged to spend on the planet earth.
Mom and Ouma taught me the lesson that every girl or woman by virtue of the grace of her gender as gifted to her by God is a gold medal achiever; not a golden year.
*Witwatersrand University, affectionately known to all in South Africa as 'Wits'
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