Today I am writing one of the most difficult posts of my life.
My children make friends for life that is just how they are.
When my husband still was the principal, before he went on pension my house was always full of children, as they always came to learn and visit my children.
As I have said before I prefer to have my children at home and rather have a house full of children eating and chatting and enjoying themselves where I knew where they were.
It was not funny or sad to me, to see all the sleeping bags in my house over weekends as the friends all got together in our house.
To me it is so important to have happy children and friends, and know where they are as they knew they were welcome and their parents never minded when they visited our home.
My husband use to play golf with them and he loved it as well.
They ate breakfast and then they all helped and cleared up. Those are days that I have in my memory for ever.
My son who was born in 1972 still had some of these friends and that was wonderful. One of them always called me his second mother.
I knew when he walked in he was going to ask me to make them some corn balls, he absolutely loved them.
Now for the hard part, while we were visiting our son about 3 weeks ago my son’s phone rang but because we were having a braai, my husband answered the phone because he could see who was calling.
He was so glad when he heard that my husband was on the line and said just the one I need now. He asked a question about something that his child had to do at school and he did not know the answer. My husband laughed and said why are you phoning here to help your child, and he answered remember the game phone a friend and my husband laughed.
Everyone helped him as they were doing homework and he could not think what they called the animals that looked like buffalo in the time of the cowboys.
He was really witty and we laughed and gave him the right answer.
We came home and my son phoned to say that this friend was in hospital with a very bad heart attack. It was not his first but he has always come through them nicely.
Unfortunately this time he did not make it and passed away the day before father’s day. I can assure you that it feels like your own child dying and I really do not know how parents handle this.
He was still a young man and an excellent golfer. We will miss him very much, but sitting in church yesterday and our preacher talking about father’s day it really hit me very hard as I can just imagine this little boy of his had probable made him something for father’s day and now he was gone.
We do not understand why things like this happen but God does have his reasons, and who are we to ask why. When we pray we must forgive those enemies we have if we want God to listen to our prayer. We must forgive everyone who hurt us and then God will listen to our prayer.
The prayer that Jesus gave us in the bible says if we do not forgive those who trespassed against us, we will not be forgiven. I am writing this today because suddenly I realised how terrible it is to lose a child.
He was not my own but he could have been as they were always in my house and treated me with a lot of respect and love. I really feel sorry for this little boy who has now lost his daddy, and he must be blessed and get help from everyone.
I keep dreaming of him when he was younger and I cannot even imagine how his mother must feel. It is always so sad when young people pass away because there are so many sick old people who want to pass and it is not there time yet.
I am sorry to write this sad story but if I do not I think I will never feel better. It is so important to love everyone and never forget that we are all here on time given to us by God and we should use it in the best possible way.
I really hope you realise that if there are people you are having problems with fix it before it is too late.
Life is something that we must all value and be thankful for.
Can you think if it was someone you loved but had a fight with, and you had not fixed it what a burden it would be to carry for the rest of your life.
We know the bible says love thy neighbour as yourself so try not to have any enemies as that could make your own life very sad. Losing a child cannot be easy to any parent so see that your life is right and be ready for whatever may happen.
This is my story and I hope some of you will fix things before it is too late.