Olympian ambitions on an African Racetrack

Catherine Nicolette
IT WAS MANY MOONS AGO when I learned the life lesson that just wishing for something doesn't always mean it will happen. As a child my greatest dream was to be an athlete. I didn't factor in my petite frame or the level of my ability. I felt that practice would make perfect, and so year after year I would enrol in the Convent Sports Day and take part in the events.

As time wore on, my heroines on the track became more muscled and fleet of foot. As they excelled, I slowed. It wasn't for want of trying. During break times I used to toil around the race track, try to high jump (bringing down the pole every time) or attempt a hurdle. In the meantime, the athletically talented among our group used to chatter while eating their sandwiches and drinking their energy juices with a nonchalance which I envied.

Trundler
After a few years I became the slowest in the pack, and would quite happily trundle in last in every race. I'd puff and pant, and hope that maybe next year I would speed up with all the practice I was putting in. After all, I reckoned, if you wanted something hard enough, eventually you would get it.

After three years of watching me come last in the heats and the events, a class companion called me aside.
"Nikki," she said to me, "I hate to tell you this, but have you noticed anything about the races . . .?"
She paused hesitantly. I was genuinely puzzled. "Like what?" I asked.
"Well," she said, "My friends and I can't help noticing . . . well, your placement in the races."
Realisation dawned. "Oh," I exclaimed. "My coming last, you mean!"
"Yes, yes," she said, relieved. "I know you must feel humiliated about it."
"Not at all," I replied expansively, with all the bonhomie I inherited from the Tramore side of Dad's family, "someone's got to come last. Anyhow, it won't be forever. Next year, if I keep on practising, I might come third, or even second."
"Nikki, someone has to tell you this," my school companion insisted. "It's never going to happen. Ever.
Not next year. Or the year after that. You just haven't got the ability. And to tell you the truth, it has become embarrassing. We all cringe for you every time you come on the racetrack, knowing what's going to happen.
Do yourself a favour and please stop enrolling for all the heats. You're not only embarrassing yourself, you're embarrassing us."
I went away very thoughtful. True, I had come last in all the heats that day. Also in the shotput, the javelin, the high jump (mind you, I had got over the once without knocking the pole off). Maybe she had a point.

Sports Day
Another year rolled around. And along came Sports Day again. The nun in charge came around cheerily with a sports cap parked on top of her veil and a pen over her ear. "Ah Nicolette," she said, "Down for all the events again this year?" I eyed her thoughtfully. "Yes, indeed, Sister," I replied, and she took the pen and marked my name on her list.

The day dawned bright and beautiful. I arrived at the track in my baggy blue shorts and sports shirt. As I took my place I saw my school companions sitting on the grandstand at the side of the track. I did my stretches as I warmed up for the heat. The girls looked in utter disbelief as they saw me take my place. As the starting gun fired, I flung myself into the fray and gave it all I had. It was the best time I had ever made - and I came in (with style and class) last. I found myself absolutely unable to get over the hurdles, so every time I came to one, I simply made a detour around the left side of it. The cheering dwindled with each ensuing detoured hurdle.
By the time I finished there was absolute silence from the crowd.
As I retired from the fray, the Sister was there to give me my bottle of water and pieces of orange to suck.
"Stout effort, Nicolette, stout effort" said the nun kindly, "Better luck next year, eh." 
"Ah no, Sister," I said. "I don't really think I'm cut out to be an athlete. I might try something else instead."
"Oh what a pity," she said; "It's been so lovely  having you. You have such enthusiasm," and as I looked at her kindly face I saw she really meant it.

Welkom tekkies
Ah well, I thought philosophically as I left the track. Maybe I'd never be a star athlete, but I could be a brilliant archeologist. Or a top model. Or a world famous surgeon. Why, the sky was the limit.
So I hung up my Welkom tekkies and my dreams of Olympic stardom.
I took up crochet instead.

Celebrations St Patrick's Night

Catherine Nicolette
Dad and I were having one of our long heart-to-heart conversations while cooking the dinner.
St Patrick's Feast had been celebrated in style the night before by the local Welkom Irish Community.
Dad winced if there were any loud noises, and so I stopped banging so hard with the fork against the pot as I mashed the potatoes.
"What happened, Dad?" I asked.
"I can't remember," said Dad ruefully,
"But your Mom's remembering it for me."

The Welkom Garden

Our beautiful garden in Welkom has featured in so many blog posts, so by popular acclaim here is a photo - my dear cousin had treasured this photo for many years. Dad took the photo (his hobby was photography, he was a wedding photographer when not underground at the mine, and he and mom ran a photography shop for a while). I proudly helped Dad deckle the edges. Family members and friends are in the photo; Mom is kneeling, and Aunt Elly is wearing the glamorous sunglasses. Aunt Elly has her left arm around me, and I am wearing my beautiful brown suede dress with buckle straps (have never seen buckle straps like that again), short blonde hair and a pixie smile.
Those were the days. . .

Catherine Nicolette

Do Our Parents Still Pray for Us?

Luky;
AS CATHOLICS we confess that we believe in the communion of saints each time we recite the Creed. The Catechism of the Catholic Church cites two examples of the communion of the saints. It quotes St Dominic on his death bed as telling his grieving brethren: "Do not weep for I shall be more useful to you after my death, and I shall help you then more effectively than during my life." The other example given is St Therese of Lisieux's promise: "I want to spend my  heaven in doing good on earth".

Being of 1940 vintage myself, I was raised to venerate the saints and the angels. When something is lost I appeal to St Anthony. When a child is slipping from the straight and narrow I ask Sts Monica and Augustine for help. When the home maintenance falls apart I invoke the intercession of St Joseph the Carpenter, while St Theresa of Lisieux has rained many a rose down upon me from heaven. When money is tight I pray to St Matthew the tax collector and when my children lose their jobs I beg St Rita of Cascia to intercede for them. During my pregnancies I used to send frequent petitions for intercession to St Gerard Majella and I say the guardian angel prayer of my youth morning and evening. Our Lady, of course, is always invoked in the rosary. She our heavenly mother, is the greatest saint of all - yet she remains as humble and approachable as the littlest of saints.

If you do not always receive exactly what you ask from God through the intercession of the saints and the angels, their prayers will always lead to peace of mind and the resilience needed to make a new start. But is it only the canonised saints whose prayers on our behalf reach the Heart of God? Do not our own deceased parents, relatives and friends who are now in the company of God continue to pray for us and ask Him to shift or lessen our burdens?

It seems to me that not all people today have devotion to the saints and angels. Yet - from some accounts - when their parents die they often seem to address them in the same child-like way they employed as children. They believe - as I do - that their parents are still caring for them and will continue to do so until they get them safely into heaven.

In the two years after my father died I had two experiences which to date I shared with few people for fear of ridicule. As the years thunder by, I find myself less in need of human affirmation and respect and more in need of sharing good experiences with others. You never know when your story may heal a painful spot in the heart of another.

My father died in 1968. A year later my fourth child was born after a lengthy confinement which lasted two days and nights. I don't know at which point I began to sense my father's presence in my consciousness but it was this, I believe, which sustained me through what could otherwise have been a nightmare 48 hours. I cannot say I saw him but I felt his presence right beside me and seemed to hear his voice. He was not advising me to pray or endure - example rather than preaching had always characterised his style of bringing up his children - but he was there and kept me company in the long and lonely hours while my husband was at home, taking care of the other little ones when he was not at work.

One incident that stands out in my mind occurred when a nurse came in and made a joke with me. As she walked out, I was still laughing, as was my father. It struck me that she had spoken English, a language my Dutch father had never mastered. "Do you understand English now, Dad?" I asked him. In my twilight consciousness I understood him to say: "Where I am living now we don't speak any specific language but we understand every language that is spoken." Whatever explanation there may be of the presence I felt during my confinement, I'm sure I was too far gone in pain, fear and misery right then to have imagined such a luminous thought on my own. Once the baby came, the presence withdrew, but then I was holding my consolation in my arms.

Eight months later I was planting seedlings in my rocky garden where nothing but weeds ever seemed to flourish. "Dad," I said, "Please ask our Lord to bless my efforts in this garden and pray to him to send me a nice, colourful show of flowers this summer."

We were living in a house in South Africa that belonged to the company where my husband was employed. A few weeks later he was awarded a better house, with the loveliest garden I ever lived in. The privets all the way around provided privacy. In the middle of the lush lawn in front stood a massive mimosa tree, raising its yellow arms up to God's blue sky. Along the length of the driveway from the gate to the garage, grew a profusion of grapes. In front there were indigenous flowering shrubs, a breathtaking rose garden and a huge flowerbed with colourful annuals. Apricot, peach and fig trees grew in the back garden which also contained the tallest mulberry tree I have ever seen.

How my children loved that garden! They fed themselves and their friends on fruit, built a tree house in the mulberry tree and became the chief suppliers of mulberry leaves when silk worm fever raised its head among the student body of the school they attended a few blocks away. I'm afraid we let the garden run to seed somewhat but the memories those children built in that garden in those formative years remain evergreen. When I think of the joy I experienced of moving into the house with that wonderful garden I always thank my dad. My mother and my siblings also had some startling experiences after my father died - on the feast of the Assumption that year.

When our children or grandchildren turn their backs on God, we parents tend to wear ourselves out praying and fearing for them. As well as our own prayers, they need the intercession of the saints and angels we invoke - including our own parents and grandparents. We know how devotedly they prayed for us and our offspring during their lives on earth. We can only guess how fervently they pray for us now that the scales have fallen off their eyes and they find themselves in God's presence.

Many of our parents, parents-in-law, godparents and grandparents first taught us to live and then showed us to die, by bearing an agonising, debilitating disease in a spirit of Christian fortitude before dying fortified by the Church's Sacraments. As far as religion is concerned theirs was a strong generation, whose members passed on the candle of our faith to us, their children. If at times it seems that we may have failed to do likewise in respect of all of the next generation, surely their intercession for us and our offspring will not, in the end, prove to have been in vain.

*Photograph by Lumiere Charity volunteer Britain, used with kind permission. With thanks to the stained glass artist

Sons and Brothers

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!

Children are what we make them

The Case of the Missing Lightbulb

Luky;
A FRIEND of mine had two children, and was a very hardworking woman.
   Every day she took off the children's school clothes, washed and pressed the boy's flannels and the daughter's gym slip, sponged down their blazers and treated them for stains, shone their shoes till you could see your face in them, changed their home-knitted cardigans, ironed her daughter's ribbons till they looked like butterflies, bleached, starched and pressed their school shirts, and then sat with the wearers until every bit of their homework was finished.

Bouquet
The children responded well to this treatment, and belonged to the top scholars in their classes. One teacher told my friend that it was a pleasure to teach her children, because not only was their homework impeccably done, but they were also the cleanest children at the school.
   My self-effacing friend was pleased to receive some recognition for her services and told me about it shyly, her cheeks pink.
   Resolutely silencing that vinegary little voice in my heart which always speaks up when others manage better than I do, I congratulated my friend and admitted handsomely that she worked a lot harder with her two than I did with my six, who looked all right when school started but rather different by the end of term.
   Once I got back home, I thought about the compliment paid to my friend and remembered getting a similar one years ago.
We were travelling overseas on a Dutch passenger ship with our two eldest children. For the sake of expense we had settled for tourist class, but soon found out why it was cheaper.
   The tourist class was overflowing with people and first class was pretty well deserted, so that its few passengers were being treated like royalty. In comparison, we of the plebeian class were herded together like cattle, or so it seemed to me.

Step up
But things were to look up for us. On the second day at sea, the ship's purser came over to me. With the air of one bestowing a great privilege, he informed me that because of the dearth of children in first class, my two were allowed to join the ships crèche.
   I dislike being patronized, so my thanks were not as effusive as they might have been.
   "Do you realise", the purser insisted, "that your children will now be free to play with those of the First Class?"
   "The honour leaves me speechless", I said coolly.
When I brought my children to the crèche I met the two Dutch nurses in attendance. They were charming, and took me to their hearts because I spoke their language. They introduced me to the mother of the four first-class children, and then she and I went back to our separate departments - I to wash, bleach, starch, press and polish my children's belongings, and she to go and play deck tennis. All I remember of that boat trip is working to keep my children looking as trim as possible.

Badly dressed
But the other mother had no such qualms; her kids frankly looked a mess. Regardless of gender, they wore the same denim shorts throughout the journey, with the same shabby tops . . . I could bet those kids didn't even wear vests!
   The day before we docked, the elder nurse spoke to me. "You've restored my faith in the Dutch mother", she said. "Your children looked spotless throughout. As for those other poor kids . . ." Her voice trailed off as their mother breezed in, looking tanned and relaxed.
   "Hello, luv", the mother said to me. "Did you enjoy your journey?"
   "It wasn't bad", I said doubtfully. "And you?"
   "My dear, I had a ball!" she beamed. "I told my  husband: 'Let's go by boat. I'm tired of working my life away. We'll travel first class, dress in things that don't show stains, and put our feet up for two solid weeks.' Excuse me, there's the purser. I wonder if he's developed those photos of us at the captain's farewell dinner" - and off she ran.

   That woman has taught me a thing or two about life, I thought, watching her retreating back. I got the compliments, but she had the fun.

Catherine Nicolette;
Ah yes, the boat. Was I four years old? I remember it well. Going over the Equator, being approached by people dressed as King Neptune and a mermaid (I must have been very small; I remember things and people at that time as being very big). Going up and down the slide in the crèche. I vaguely remember being told at the crèche what a lucky little boy and girl my brother and I were, being allowed to play with the other children. I was also told to be on my best behaviour, because our family had not paid as much to be on the cruise and we didn't want to smack one of the children who had paid more and cause problems, did we? With all my sunny disposition of four years, I looked dispassionately over at the other kids, and thought; they're the lucky ones, being allowed to play with my brother and me. And I proceeded to have the best time of my life.

Mom did her best
Well. All I can ever remember is Mom cooking, scrubbing, cleaning, tidying, driving, walking, making appointments, taking us to the dentist, doctor or to school. She never stopped, neither did Dad. And Mom really did try to make us look our best. However, Mom had to make do with a girl with the soul of a tomboy. We would stand while she checked us going to school. At school some of the girls in my class would end the day with long smooth hair daintily tied with a pink ruffled ribbon. Perfectly ironed pleats in the old fashioned convent schoolgirl uniform would be tidily matched with a spotless white blouse, perfectly groomed tie, immaculate knee high socks turned back at the exact edge of the three black stripes at the top of the sock. Dolly style shoes would gleam on their feet. One or two daring souls had beautifully matched eyebrows and eyelashes, and soft pink colour on their lips. This was due to the highly illicit and much sought after mascara and lip gloss forbade by the nuns who taught us, and smuggled in by some of the schoolgirls.

Hockey Match
And then you came to me. I remember one day in particular. I had led a rousing hockey match in the classroom during a break between exams. We all had our hockey sticks out 
(I was the captain of one team) and five to a side, we belted around the classroom (our desks having been pushed to the walls), hammering the living daylights out of a stout and sturdy Welkom orange which we were using as a hockey ball. The illicit game only came to an end when a particularly good shot by myself went upwards instead of forwards and broke the hanging lightbulb from the classroom ceiling. An Awful Silence fell upon the room, and we gazed upon the shards littering the floor in front of us. I quickly cleaned up the glass, two of us guiltily hid the evidence in a wrapped up piece of feint lined writing paper and we buried them as deep as you could get in the Sisters Cloister Garden bin next to the compost heap. While my other partners in crime heaved the desks back to their allotted places, we readied ourselves for the afternoon exam.

Pained look
When the nun in charge of the afternoon Biology exam came in, she gave me a pained look. Afterwards, I saw why. After the mêlée I never got the chance to do my usual quick check up to see if I was tidy. As I stood with the others (we used to stand up in respect when our teachers came in), my hair was rumpled and my newly growing pony tail was sticking to the side like a paintbrush on the left side of my head. I had a couple of orange splashes on my rather grubby white schoolshirt where the orange had obligingly spattered on me when I scored a goal through the opposing team's goal post (a desk lying on its side). My skirt was unevenly rucked, the hem trailing where my lacklustre repair stitching had given way. My baggy socks were wrinkled around my ankles, and my boy's oxford shoes (a size too small and pinched from my younger brother's cupboard that morning because he had buried my dolly shoes in the yard during our treasure hunt and then unfortunately lost the map) were scuffed and the left rubber sole flapped loosely from the bottom of the shoe. (Did I mention that they were old shoes which were destined to be thrown out before my rescue?)
And on my right forefinger was my trademark black ink and paint colours which used to stain my fingers during my enthusiastic art classes for many years.

Poor mom. She really did try.

Respectable citizen
Anyhow. There is an ending to this story. Many years later, I had become a most respectable citizen of society and was working in ecclesiastical garb. We were always perfectly turned out, and took pride in the same. I was due to go home to visit my parents, and the night before the flight decided to dye my new pair of shoes a sober black. 
Tip; never dye without gloves. The top of the dye bottle, newly purchased, gave way as I twisted it and splashed over the flooring and my hands. The dye on the flooring came off with repeated cleaning; the dye on my fingers did not. A few days later I happened to bump into one of the highly groomed young women I had spent my schooldays with. She had become a model in the interim, and looked glamorous. I was delighted with myself, as I looked groomed and polished and my new shoes gleamed in the sun. After I greeted her, she looked down at my hands, picked them up, looked at the black splatters on the forefingers and nails and said, "Tsk, tsk. Some things never change."
Sigh.

Oh, and by the way; Sister Infantia, I'm really sorry about your lightbulb . . .

Into the Sunset

 Luky;
ONE of my jobs in the office was to keep a supply of stamps for sale to the staff.
A member of staff came in one day to post a letter to a firm of undertakers.
"We've had a death in the family", he said morosely. "The worst of it is that is was my fault, in a way."
I looked at him in horror.
He continued; "He borrowed a thousand rand from me to buy himself a motorbike. He was killed outside a little town last month. If only I had refused to lend him the money, he might still be alive."

Double take
In the days before he met me, my husband had gone for a trip on the back of a friend's motorbike when the friend had an accident. People passing afterwards called an ambulance, and they took the driver to the hospital.
When he came to after a couple of hours, his first question was: "Where's Sean?"
"Who is Sean?" the Doctor asked.
"The guy who rode on the back of my bike."
"We found only you."
"Well, you'd better go back quickly and look for Sean."
So the ambulance went out for the second time, and in a ditch beside the road they found Sean, still unconscious.

Older and wiser
I've never driven a motorbike, but when I was young I knew a few boys who owned one, and they'd sometimes let me ride pillion.
If birds could talk and explain what it's like to fly, I think they could only describe the freedom I experienced on the back of those bikes. You feel so free and so glad, and the little worries of every day become unimportant.
"Faster, faster!" you think. And those days there was no speed limit to speak of, and we'd laugh at those signboards which warned: "Drive like lightning and you'll crash like thunder."
I don't want to be a wet blanket because I myself experienced the joys of pillion riding on a motorbike, but, older and wiser now, I'd be nervous about my own children doing the same.

Scale of values
Years ago my eldest son was home for a weekend, and we went for a walk together. Not far from our house, a neighbour's son, totally incognito in heavy crash helmet, goggles, leather jacket, boots and gloves, roared past us.
"Does he think he is impressing us?" I said when I'd recovered from shrinking on to the pavement.
"Yes," my son said calmly. "You see, he'd be impressed by me if I roared past him on a motorbike, wearing those clothes, and so he thinks I'm impressed by him."

Into the sunset
I remember the months some boys who had accidents on motorbikes spent being nursed. They suffered tortures and lay in plaster for months, but they counted the days until they could get up. And do you know what the first thing they intended doing was?
Not, as I hoped, to buy a little car. Not a chance. They only wanted to get back on to their motorbikes and go screaming off again, into the sunset.