ALI MPHAKI
THE DEATH of a parent, especially a mother, is a pain which cannot be compared to any other.
Shock, disbelief and anger engulf you as you try to come to terms with the reality. Try as you might to put on a brave face, tears roll down your cheeks.
This situation has befallen the Hlongwa family in Rockville. Their mother, Anna Tebogo Hlongwa, died last Wednesday after a short illness. She was 86.
It is often said that people who live to the age of 80 and above have earned their innings. But even at that ripe age, it is very difficult for surviving family members to accept that their loved one is no more.
“It feels so unreal, so surreal,” said one of Hlongwa’s daughters, Joyce, who was the first to realise that her mother had died when she tried to wake her from her sleep. Joyce had been staying with her at her home in Orange Farm.
Hlongwa was the fourth born in a family of seven children. The family used to live on a farm outside Carletonville called Modderfontein before they moved to Sophiatown in the early 1940s. When black families were forcibly moved out of Sophiatown in the 1950s, they went to live in Rockville.
Even though she was working as a domestic worker, the Sophiatown influence on Hlongwa was evident from the way she carried herself and how she dressed.
“She was a helluva lady who even in her twilight years believed in doing things for herself. She would do her own washing and ironing. She would sweep and scrub the floors without a complaint. We will sorely miss her,” lamented Joyce.
Hlongwa was a proud member of the St Francis Anglican Church in Rockville.
Her family said she recently suffered a stroke, which left her bedridden.
She is survived by her seven children and 12 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
She will be buried tomorrow after a service at the St Francis Anglican Church at 7am. The cortege will proceed to Avalon Cemetery at 9am.