Happy Birthday Bruno 🤍

 Tomorrow is Bruno’s 7th Birthday. We got him and Rihanna from Tsile Sephoti after losing Bella. Another gift from Francis En Herman Liebenberg. I was never a “dog person” until I met Les. Bruno had a twin Rihanna. I still sob when I think about her some days. She loved eating cucumbers. She was fed poison and died exactly a year before Lesley died. I lost so much that everything I have seems so little or not enough tat times. And it’s unfair on those who don’t know the massive void I’m constantly trying to fill. I live between extremes. I experience the most beautiful moments and then some really shitty ones and some I’d rather be dead than go through. Right now I don’t know what I’m longing for. For Lesley and Rihanna to come back from the dead or to be just ignorant of my broken heart? And then Papa. The one responsible for Bruno’s obesity. Hahaha. “Ntatemogolo o lapile today Brukies,” he’d say to Bruno. That alone spoke volumes to our relationship. God bless his soul. And my mother who’s just fading away. I am glad I don’t see life this way every day because I’d be as good as dead. When events like this come, I don’t ignore them. But I have not acknowledged Bruno’s birthday since 2017. I’m so sad this evening man. It doesn’t help that I’m not a millionaire yet too. 😀 it’s always fun to confuse my own emotions. Laughing at my lousy jokes while I’m crying. 😆 and I know some of you are checking out Lesley’s ass. You’re going to hell. 🤣

Good night. ❤️

Love without you

I really understand the dilemma marketing gurus go through when they want to change perception around a brand. Change it and still be able to sell it to people with its history completely detached.

I still get people who refer to me as “Matuba wa Lesley.” Because We unconsciously created that in people’s eyes. Doing everything together, always together except when hoe was life. LOL. And I spoke about him every chance I got. He became me and I can safely say it was the same in his case too. With him gone, trying to love again, is worse than solving for X in a math paper. (I hated mathematics and so this is the worst possible description of a difficulty.)

Especially when the periodical wave of grief creeped in. You get so used to swimming alone out of that tide so much, it becomes a space you want to be alone. I wonder if my one chance at love was just with him and I must now discover my new purpose for living. And I use the word love very loosely because you need more than just love to love someone completely and unreservedly. I once knew that kind of love. And you know it exists on days you’ve done the unforgivable, but a whole new level of I love you shows up. I miss Lesley and I want to be comfortable missing him this way. Remaembering everything. But anyone who’s not in my shoes will see it as holding on to what’s already gone. It’s that simple for people who don’t know grief. I miss you baby. I don't know how not to miss you.

A traveller's note

I have been running away from missing you. I willingly do everything that helps me move on to the next stage of my life because everything I knew was decorated with your presence. My life is still pretty much like an after-party clean up. I am learning to feel the things I used to know all over again.   But there's a layer of my humanity that was eroded with your passing. And so I feel things differently, just like your death, it hurts differently. But I record most of my days, I look back and chuckle and think to myself, "who is he kidding?" But it is amazing to be able to reach the level of joy often brought with the love of friends while I am away from family. The point of this note though, was to say I love and miss you. And more so now that I am away from the safety net that is family and friends back home. I was telling Hlonela just the other day that I think the best part about falling in love was mending from a broken heart. The recovery is full of interesting aspects of my life I only heard from people.
This morning I came across words from Muslim scriptures that felt like light into my current darkness of feeling lost without you.

Be in the world as if you were as a stranger or a traveller: when evening time comes, expect not the morning; and when morning time comes expect not the evening; and prepare as long as you are in good health for sickness, and so long as you are alive for death. 

After reading this, I realised that I am startled by feeling better because the intensity of my grief is subsiding. I don't have any feeling of guilt because you've always put yourself before me ensuring my happiness. There's no doubt in my mind about how you feel about how I've carried on since you left. In everything I do, I try to be present. But in all the great things that happen to me, I still look for you. This makes me a difficult person to love or console because sometimes my heart just yearns for you and it won't stop until you just don't arrive. My conclusion is that extreme pain of knowing you are not coming back is what subdues the heart and it lets go. It's a cycle I live with now. It's like the rest of my being is separated from my own heart. My body and my mind are the caretakers of a broken heart.

I love and miss you Lesley. I don't express it every day, but my whole life and everything I do is themed around your death. I am in places I would not be in if you were still alive. Everything about me just says, I miss you. I pray to God of my forefathers that you are resting peace.

My journey to the cross

This time every year, for the rest of my life will be like the Christian's "Journey to the Cross." That's the build up to the crucifixion. Seven days from today will be the anniversary of Lesley's passing. The first one. Last year this time Lesley and I were like a couple that's just met, right up until the minute I last saw him. Thanks to a stupid quarrel we had a week before. It led us on a path to the end of his journey. Unknowingly so and we left nothing unsaid. Our fears and hopes were laid bare. Death was among them. One week after we laid him to rest I thought I'd be dead too by this time. But in retrospect a part of me did die with him. I think that's what made me not deal with grief in the conventional way. That's just me being polite. But truth is, I didn't do it the way everyone "expected" me to do it. I didn't wait for a year to go by before I could start dating and falling in love again. I just did what would keep me afloat instead of  killingwhat was left of me. Is there still space to grieve? Oh hell yes. Sometimes you wake up crying in the arms of your new love. They either hold you tight, comfort you or freak out. I was and still the best judge of what I need to be doing as someone grieving. There's no manual that comes with it. Not easy to control, but after every fall I went back to my position of power. My goal is to be the happiest brokenhearted man. Being away from home and loved ones at this time was a conscious decision. There will be time to regroup and carry on with life while I continue to preserv the memory of the love of my life. Rest in peace Makgariana.

I'm leaving

I've started packing for my departure. In fact I am almost done. So I come across some of Lesley's clothes. The ones I did not want to let go of. Then I smile with sadness. Then start doing a monologue and I laugh out loud because I know how he would have responded to my sarcasm. I quickly snap out of it because I'd started to enjoy pretending he's with me. Like a mad person I cry and smile at the same time.  I'm just so happy that I am in a good space to close this chapter. But I'm taking you with me. The pain will shed itself and leave the broken heart to enjoy its new life. There's no "letting go" here. You will always be part of the journey. The cause changed because of your departure. I'm even tempted to throw bones and ask you what you think of my new boyfriend. Hahaha. I love you and thank you. I'm still learning how to talk about you without crying. I promise it's not so much sadness. I don't have a name for it. It doesn't matter. I'm okay and I will be okay. My dilemma is one. If I marry this guy and then cross over, will you still be mine when I see you? Hahaha. Don't answer that. I love you.

Evening thoughts

So I'm chatting with Bae via text. Lols feels so weird. He's distracting me from reading a book I'd usually finish in two hours. But I honestly don't mind because he's a whole PhD thesis unfolding in my life. The feeling of love carries a tinge of sadness for me. Don't know if I'm trying to justify my new love, but I have learned grief transmutes into other forms of energy and life. It doesn't go away. It's tough but I have surrendered to processes of life. Hoping that the grief that wraps my heart like snow on Lesotho mountains in the cold winters, melts into water that nourishes my widowed heart. Just so I can love again. And most importantly so I can live.

Early morning thoughts

Woke up with thoughts so heavy for my soul. I was reflecting on how much I shared about losing Lesley. And I noticed in the sharing of my loss I sometimes behaved like I was the only one who lost him. I even shared mostly pictures of just him and I. Truth is, some of his best captured images are with his friends and  not with me. Yet I made it so much about me. There was never a need for insecurities because there is still almost a decade of memories just for me. Probably to last me a lifetime. Maybe I thought it would fast-track the process. Mourning and grief are best left to run their course. Preferably in private away from the gaze which creates expectations from the outside world. I shared and overshared. Was it my coping mechanism? Who knows? All I know now is I'm terrified of losing his image in my mind. I'm slowly sobering up from my severe depression and it feels like I'm walking away from him. The guilt of finding joy without him. Makes me look back instead of reflecting and moving on. I don't even want to hear the phrase "move on". But who am I kidding? I love life. And I love LOVE. The dilemma is I can never have them with Les. The only love I knew. But I take consolation in the fact that there was nothing unsaid between us. My happiness was important to him. I think it still is. I know this sounds like permission to start dating. It's not. And those who know me well know that I don't need it. I just miss Les. And I can just imagine myself in my 60s telling fourth husband about what a catch my Les was. At this stage of my grief, I now know where broken hearts go. It's a path you find on your own when you lose the love of your life.