Live by Design is a weekly News24 column by Dr Helena Dolny and Mapi Mhlangu on mortality and the conversations around it.
Last month, we marked 30 years since our first democratic elections. I cannot help but think about my late husband, Joe Slovo. As 23 May approaches, his birthday is approaching, and a trip to Avalon Cemetery is in my diary. And then there will be 29 May Election Day—people asking each other, who will you vote for and why?
Denver, the handyman, arrives with his son to fix my windows. Among the family photographs, he notices some of Joe with Madiba, Alfred Nzo, Chris Hani, and Cyril Ramaphosa. Unsolicited, he comments: “That was a different ANC than the one we have now. Corruption has destroyed that ANC.”
As they leave, I ask the young man if he will take over his father’s business. The son answers proudly that he will ace his matric exams this year and aspires to be a lawyer. His father comments that under apartheid, his parents were removed to Mitchells Plain, and in the last 30 years, he has worked hard to get back to Lansdowne. He has also been able to make sure that his son has gone to good schools to get a better education than he had access to. He hopes his son will have that better life, although he reflects on the disadvantages of being classified as coloured and of not being considered black enough. I listen to Denver – the cadence of his gentle voice. He is calm, composed, and articulate; his demeanour is of a man at peace with himself and how he is living his life.
I had a coaching client five years ago, a woman in her mid-50s. In her 40s, she had been a high-powered executive in the entertainment industry. She was inching her way forward after a double trauma of illness and divorce. She said: “I want another slice of a BIG life.” She liked the power, the glitz, the money, the champagne. Her desires fed dissatisfaction and fuelled both her ambition and avarice.
