The Things She Remembered

By Gugulethu Nkutha

The things she remembered wasn’t what haunted her, nor was it that she couldn’t exactly remember every detail of that night, for she wanted it buried. What troubled her most was meeting others like her who had done worse, but who didn’t regret what they had done; actually they’d do it again if given the chance. She learned that they have come to terms with facing and living with their tormenting nightmares every minute and hour of each day.

It was in that moment of her last push as she eagerly awaited her unborn twins, that in the moment of birth, the death of her childhood would haunt her again; the one secret which could kill all. She was trying to breathe and was pleading for her life to come back while she heard the many voices from afar. She wanted to have another chance to do right but it kept slipping away from her.

The book stands to bring to the fore the numerous tragedies carried by many, experiences we feel ashamed of, mostly thinking we are the only ones in that situation. It is a story of self forgiveness and restoration not for others, but to ourselves. The deathly silence in the room forces us to simply look in the mirror and realise that it’s all in us; we are not born and forgotten.

About the Author-

Gugulethu Nkutha is a self-published African author, born and raised in the South African townships, Tsakane and Kwa-Thema. She is a dynamic woman, who loves her life as a woman, mother of two and wife. She is a sister to many and a true activist for God and the freedom that comes with Him for His people.

This is Gugulethu - on a mission to reach all and tell it all.

Boasting a successful 17-years in corporate marketing and 10 years in executive trailblazing decisions., she takes on a new chapter in her life as she expresses intimate parts of her life, her experiences with people, and powerful encounters with God.

The things she remembered is her first published book in 2018.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gugulethu Nkutha
• Release date: Aug 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463280140

Book preview

The Things She Remembered

Gugulethu Nkutha

The Things She Remembered

Gugulethu Nkutha

Copyright © 2018 Gugulethu Nkutha

Published by Gugulethu Nkutha Publishing at Smashwords

First edition 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

ISBN 978-0-620-80947-4

Published using Reach Publishers’ services,

7 Esmaralda Crescent, Robindale, 2194,

083 200 3280

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Edited by Brenda Van Rensburg and Hugo Chandler for Reach Publishers

Cover designed by Reach Publishers

P O Box 1384, Wandsbeck, South Africa, 3631

Website: www.reachpublishers.co.za

E-mail: [e-mail]

To our daughters Nasibu & Safwani the stone has been thrown a distance and foreshadow laid in front of you, for you is to throw the stone a distance further and cast your net into the deep as far as you can, you can do anything you put your heart to, that is your mind

To the many man and women in physical, mental and spiritual prison, being misunderstood and misfit is an opportunity to self actualisation

1. In the Beginning

2. Khanya - Light

3. God is Love!

4. Death, Why Do You Never Get Tired?

5. The People of Mekong

6. Morning Never Dawns

7. Blossoms of a Lilly Flow

8. Sweet Sixteen

9. Sexuality

10. Time Waits for No Man, It Flies

11. Sleep Cousin to Death

12. No Longer an Innocent Child

13. The Past Remains in Our Baggage of Things We Packed

14. Run Away

15. Sherperd

16. Silent No is Louder

17. Love Me Tender, Love Me No More

18. Lies of Love at First Sight

19. The Misfortunes of Our Naivety…

20. The Funeral, Ashes to Ground

21. Disillusioned Realities

22. Lead Us Not into Temptation

23. One Fight

24. The Baby Who Killed

25. The Many Filter in Our Minds, Forget Me Not

26. The Flood of Questions

01

In the Beginning

Had someone cared enough to teach Estelle the burning pain of feeling angry at life, perhaps she would have heard those around her, who in silent tones of gossip, thought that she didn’t hear them. They would say things like, If she had done better in life, if someone had cared enough to tell her that what she was doing was painful and self-inflicted, then maybe she wouldn’t have done what she did? Their judgemental faces and fading whispers would linger…

It was a day like many other days, but on this day, I woke up drowning in a pool of blood. At first, I thought it was mine, as I had discovered a week ago that I was three months pregnant. After weeks of suffering from stomach cramps and migraines, causing me to lose my balance at times, my sister had convinced me to go to the clinic.

The nurse there had asked me, When was the last time you had your period?

Without hesitation I had answered, A week ago.

Oh okay, then you should be fine. It could be something that you ate? How long was your period for? the nurse had enquired.

A day, I’d responded as I’d noticed a butterfly outside the window that had flown into the window and bounced back. I had seen many in colour, but never a black and white one. It was a rare sight.

A day? asked the nurse, as she gave me a look that said, ‘Don’t lie to me little girl!’

This was funny as I wasn’t lying. My look gave the nurse a look, that said, ‘Yes, I am telling you the truth, believe it or not!’

How long do you usually have your periods for? asked the nurse.

Seven days.

And when it lasted for only a day you didn’t notice anything out of place about this?

No, because it was not the first time. My periods have always been irregular.

What brought you here today?

My sister said I should come here.

Before she could start her next sentence, I didn’t want to give her the chance to pass her thoughts onto me, so I continued, Also, the pains have been worse than before, and continue almost every hour non-stop, I’m not sure why.

Anything odd that you ate recently?

If eating a lot of watermelon is anything to go by, then yes.

Watermelon, what is that?

A fruit.

I know it’s a fruit, but are you allergic to it? At this point she’d turned around to fetch what looked like an ice cream stick but this one was a bit thicker.

So, you don’t eat watermelons? she asked.

No, I eat watermelons. We have a tree full of them at home, but yesterday I couldn’t stand the smell of any other foods. The watermelon was the only thing that I couldn’t smell, so I ate the watermelon morning, noon and night.

Go aaah for me, the nurse said, holding the stick. Looking at my confused look she said, Aaah, I mean open your mouth. Have you never been to the doctor before?

No.

Are you having sex?

Aaah, no I’m a virgin.

She took what looked like a small torch but with a small pointer and shone it down my throat.

Looks like it’s nothing. Your throat looks fine, she said.

The way that she asked her questions was as if all the answers that I gave her disappointed her. I had been taught to wait at home, not for the right man but for the right time because this would come.

There’s nothing to rush, my father always told me. You see your older sister, she waited, he would say, which was a lie as my father didn’t know that my sister would sneak out of the house to meet up with boys from the village.

I recently heard through some of my friends in our school that she dated older men too, as there were certain places where all the older girls and boys of the village went to which we were not allowed to go. They called it the undergrounds. But it was none of my business, as for me, I listened to my father.

And besides, sex is just too overrated! he would say repeatedly. It was odd because my mom would always give him the look every time he said these last words – Sex is just too overrated. For me, the look said that this was untrue. Another lie.

I don’t have sex, but we … does once make a difference? I’d asked the nurse.

You know it only takes once, she said as she laughed.

Yes, my teacher always says …

Do you use protection?

Excuse me?

Hey, do you use protection, condoms?

Yes ... I do, which was a lie that I had told because of the flashbacks that played in my mind.

It happened too quickly and so suddenly, as I forced myself not to think about it or to remember it. I had a feeling that the nurse could read my emotions and hear my thoughts.

I wished that I could tell her. I wanted to have the choice to say something, to speak up for myself. I wished that I could have told her how much I wished to have a say in the questions that she was asking me, like, Did you at least use protection, as I didn’t want any of your dirt on me, and about how it had suddenly happened.

Okay, take this little cup with you, go in there pee, and then bring it back. Don’t shake or do anything to the stick in the cup.

I sat down on the toilet seat and placed the little cup in front of my feet. Sitting on the toilet seat was the longest five minutes of my life as I waited for a miracle to happen and a few drops of pee to come out. As I waited, I realised that my nail polish was coming off, and I started peeling off the rest of the navy-blue nail polish.

My sister’s voice played in my head. You need to stay hydrated in this heat, Estelle, you need to drink water.

It had been more than forty-one degrees for almost two weeks. On the news we had heard of farms that had caught fire, and children who had suffered from heat stroke from playing outside.

I mostly walked to and from school and my sister had noticed how my skin was being consumed by the effects of the heat. My skin would become so dry that it would start peeling. It was up to forty-two degrees on some days. It was worse when we had netball practice, as the last bus leaving the school was at half-past-two, and if we missed the bus because of Mrs Pyper’s lateness as she was always late for practice and she made us wait while you could hear her laughing away in the office with Mr Skeeper. He had recently lost his wife to cancer and rumour had it that she thought that she had a chance with him.

Netball was my favourite sport, but Mrs Pyper would always make us start thirty minutes late. She did warm ups and then she made us play for the full hour. Khanya and I would look at the time, knowing that we would have to walk the five kilometres home in the heat, as we would have missed the bus.

02

Khanya – Light

Khanya was my best friend. She was the loudest and the prettiest. If you ask me, no one had a personality like Khanya in our school. Not only was she beautiful, but her presence filled up the whole classroom. She was loved by everyone in school. The teachers found her very challenging at times, as she always had too much to say and we all knew that she didn’t do her homework. She was not the brightest, but she was smart enough to keep her exam grades-up and pass. She wanted to be a fashion designer, which we all didn’t know anything about until Khanya told us about it, from all the magazines her mother brought from the big city. She was the first to get a television in her house; a fifty-four centimetre TV, which allowed her to watch many international television shows. She hated maths and science, but she enjoyed the home class every Friday where we all learnt how to cook and sew. I hated it because maths and business science were my best subjects. The boys at school were scared of her while they adored her at the same time, in their secret talks. She had a way of putting them in their place, especially Jimmy, who was the loudest and most irritating, especially during biology class. He would always pass comments and make funny jokes when we studied the body parts and skeletal structures of both males and females.

Most of the girls in class just loved Khanya, because she was such a beautiful person to be around and she knew how to put Jimmy in his place. We always enjoyed sitting with her during breaks, although you could not pin her down in one place; it was as though she could not sit still. Her energy was also addictive, as she would go from one group to the next with her many stories for the day. Everyone wanted to see the latest trends in her magazines.

She always sat with us in a circle with all her magazines scattered around. She would then explain to us saying, You see this is couture, and vintage. These are the latest patterns in fashion animal prints and polka dots, and they are in fashion now.

The way that she spoke about her passion for design, we had forgotten how bad she was at maths and science. It was a calling she would say. I always pictured someone calling her name from afar, as she said that she wanted to work in London one day and design collections, which never made sense to me, how people get called to make clothes. My mother was a seamstress, and she never called it a calling.

After school we would go home and insist that our parents brought us vintage and animal prints from the city, only because Khanya had told us to. On civvies day, you would see all the girls wearing the same dresses and patterns, while she treated us like her models, putting our hair up, applying the latest makeup and bright lipstick colours on us. We all knew that we looked ridiculous, but it didn’t matter, as we wanted to look like the girls in the magazines. Some of the teachers relied on Khanya’s know-how on fashion as she schooled them on how to match accessories with their dresses or shoes.

But everyone knew that I was the one who Khanya loved and favoured. I was the one friend who she loved the most and who she always wanted to hang around with. She never felt the need to bail out on me, like she did with the other girls. Our personalities were totally opposite; she was the loud, forceful one, while I was the mouse in the relationship. We complemented one another. She loved talking and I enjoyed listening to her, and she didn’t mind my being quiet, just listening to her. Sometimes we would sit under the avocado trees for a few minutes looking at the birds flying in the sky, while she gathered her thoughts. She would then start talking again, and this would go on for hours, until we both waved goodbye. All my teachers knew that I was very quiet in school, not much of a talker. It was a conscious decision I made at times to just be quiet and observe, but mostly I enjoyed the sound of my thoughts, observing others and continually laughing at their craziness.

My walks with Khanya to the village were full of life. During the walks I would talk and replay what was said and done in school by the other children. We would laugh about it.

She always said, I knew that you were listening and I saw you rolling your eyes. Why didn’t you say something? You know that Jimmy is such an idiot and he always wants to be the centre of attention. No matter how many times I put him in his place, he keeps coming back for more. He is strong for his skinny, bony self. This would be followed by chuckles. Maybe if you said something, he would just shut up and leave the rest of us alone? she would add.

He needs to eat too. He is so skinny, I think that his parents starve him, I said, and she would laugh so hard that she would cry.

You kill me dead Estelle. You kill me dead, Lilly girl! This was a name that she often called me by. I hated it at first but she put the fashion spunk into it and everyone followed.

I had told her of my sudden change in tasting and the cramps during the netball matches. I endured the pain, and I took tiny breaks between the ball passing. Even the smell of water was distasteful, so I didn’t have any.

One would think that a watermelon would give one the same amount of water.

I was startled and my thoughts were interrupted by a sudden knock at the door. Are you done in there?

I was so focused on my nail polish, that I immediately jumped and I kicked the cup over which I was meant to use to collect my urine sample. The knock shook me out of my stupor and I jumped off the toilet seat to get the small cup lying a few centimetres from my feet. As I stood up to reach it, I felt a sudden rush of pee. It was either falling back onto the toilet seat or messing on the floor, and I couldn’t afford the second option, given the look of what I had witnessed in the nurse’s eyes and her firm questions.

I could hear her inside my brain asking, ‘Why didn’t you just do what I asked you to? Was it so difficult?’

I reached for the test stick which I simply placed in my urine and held it there for thirty seconds. As I stood to pull up my pants, I noticed a poster on the wall of a young girl and boy, who could have been my age.

It said, Always make sure to get tested before having unprotected sex, it’s not only about getting pregnant, HIV is real. I took the stick and I wrapped the tip with toilet paper. I then washed my hands, and used a small tissue to carry the stick in.

Sorry I took this long, nothing was coming out, I said apologetically. She looked at my hands, one with an empty cup and the other with a stick wrapped in toilet paper. I couldn’t reach for the cup, I explained.

Her forehead furrowed with frown lines and her eyes squinted at me.

I see, alrighty then we wait a few seconds … the longest five minutes of my life.

Anger! … noun a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility.

Estelle, Lilly as I was called by everyone; my anger a deep-rooted pain, a second sin after the lie.

The emotions had consumed my vision in life. No matter how bad or how good the day became, I would hear small whispers. "Did God really say?" was a verse that I had learnt in Sunday school. The Devil in the form of a snake asked the woman, Did God really say? and instead of replying Yes, the question had gotten me so confused, that it would cause everything to crumble, mostly instilling doubt, which we all suffer from. These many questions that we ask ourselves, Am I really? Did they really? Do I really?

My attitude towards my anger was simply allowing myself to walk around feeling dead while believing that I was alive, as it had all made sense not to blame myself but rather those around me. I would always tell myself every morning as I started off my day, It’s not me, I didn’t have a choice. This was done to me. It’s not you Estelle, Lilly girl, this was done to you.

There is time for everything in life. We are all given time equally; the same amount of day time and night time. It’s all about how we each decide to use it, whether we seize the moment in front of us.

03

God is Love!

Love, a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.

Love is a plural word; a plus-one kind of a story, between two people. It was something I, Estelle was wired into. I had given in to desire without being told what it was. My parents were what love represented to me; it felt natural for me. Love was a deep desire to simply wanting to belong and knowing that someone valued your existence. It was amazing how I knew when I was not loved. The opposite is hate, or, to put it lightly, resentment, but was it a fair judgement when the reason for not being loved was never expressed. The world I lived in was filled with the many pointless meanings of those around me. My thoughts would continue as I sat on the red shiny stoep of my home in the sun’s scorching heat in the forty-degree summer.

My mind would recite the words I had read in a book. For after we live, we die to live. There is no narrow nor broader, endless road than the one that is of regret, you can never regret the life you live.

I love poetry; English, over and above maths and science. I love everything about the subject and I majored in original writing and literature in school. I would spend hours