Why You Were Taken

Journal entry 6 December 1988

Westville

In the news: A limpet mine explodes in at the Department of Home Affairs in Brakpan. Bangladesh is devastated after the cyclone of December 2^nd – 5 million homeless and thousands dead.

What I’m listening to: Patti Smith’s Dream of Life.

What I’m reading: Keith Kirsten’s South African Gardening Manual

What I’m watching: Die Hard. I love Bruce Willis!

The garden is absolutely exploding with colour. P says he can’t believe it’s the same garden. I’m so proud of it. Durban weather is the best: heat to get things growing and blooming, and lots of rain to keep it going. Allamanda, Bougainvillea, Mandevilla, Plumbago. Now I understand the saying ‘riot of colour’. The babies and I spend some time in it every single day.

But besides the garden, there was a big celebration today! The twins turned ONE! We took them to Mike’s Kitchen and they both had a free ‘kids meal’ – a vienna and some chips with tomato sauce and then an upside-down ice-cream cone with a clown’s face on it. Kate has such a sweet tooth and loves ice-cream so that was her favourite part. She said ‘green, green’ (even though the ice-cream was white). The waiters sang happy birthday to them and gave them red balloons with ribbons (which Sam promptly popped with his teeth). It was so cute, he had this shocked look and he looked at us, not sure if he wanted to laugh or cry.

It was a wonderful day. While the kids were eating P put his hand over mine and gave me this searching look, as if to see where that awful vacant person is, and I smiled back as brightly as I could. That part of me is pushed deep inside and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep it there.