Pain That Never Heals

Pain That Never Heals

Everybody deals with pain in various different ways whether it being physical or emotional.
I got to face the reality of death at a very young age of (8) eight in 1979, after a next door neighbour's son died at age eighteen. This young man was my best friend. We spent alot of time together as he owned a small Yamaha 50cc motorcycle 🏍. As a young boy I was quite excited about that because often he would take me on the back of his motorcycle  which I absolutely loved cos it was such a exhilarating feeling that I experienced with the wind on my face. I could never forget the exciting times we spent together as friends. He was like a big brother to me as he was approximately 10 years older than me. His name was Deon Marais and still attended high school at the time.
After he finished high school, he joined the military and started his training nearby so he could be home on weekends. One rainy night, he came home to collect some things from home and as he walked passed our kitchen window, he smiled and waved to us. That was the last time I ever saw him alive. The car him and his friends traveled in was involved in a horrific accident on their way back to the military base. He was killed on impact as the roof was apparently crushed after colliding with a tree, I think of him every day of my life and at the time in 1979 I was not sure how to deal with his death. I hardly ever cried at the time. His mom gave us a photo of him in an envelope which I kept over the years until today. He had a girlfriend named Alida whom I last saw the day of the funeral and never again. We attended the funeral service as a family but we didn't attend the gravesite. 
He received a full military funeral and his coffin was transported on a military gun (canon) as it has  traditionally always been done. I remember standing at the side of the truck and gun whiich transported his coffin to the church and then to the cemetery afterwards and stood staring at it for some time trying to comprehend as to what actually was happening as I could not believe that he was gone and I would not ever see him again.
Many years later in 1995 my dad fell ill and passed away. 
I was absolutely devastated as my dad was my hero and mentor for most of my life.
In 2019 my mom passed away and I once again I was left grieving the loss of a loved one. Since my mom passed away I find myself many a day remembering the times when my mom was still around and would still often buy certain treats we used to enjoy together. Shortly after loosing my dad, I took a drive to my friend Deon's gravesite and for the first time in my life I cried like a child over the loss of Deon and I've been back a couple of times since then. 



Comments

nina said…
Losing Deon at such a young age left a huge impact on your life. You have handled it well
Fri Feb 11, 09:00:00 pm
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