Remembering Nozulu

Yesterday the first man I ever loved was buried in a pauper's funeral that I did not attend. I was eight years old when we were childhood sweethearts and he was the most handsome man I have ever met. He was light in complexion with dark features and hazel brown eyes that sparkled when he smiled. He was tall with thick eyelashes, bushy eyebrows, full lips and a perfect Colgate smile. The one thing that sold me on him other than his looks were his brains; I have always been into really smart men.

He took after his father in the looks department; a very good coloured looking man. You could see that there was some white blood in his family. He was smart, handsome and he knew it and I was surprised that he was interested in little me.

Although his mother was from our neighbourhood he lived with his father in a coloured community and therefore spoke fluent Afrikaans. He would come visit his mother during school holidays and that's how we initially met.

You see his mother and father were and still are friends of my family. His mother used to look after me when I came back from school and whenever I was running away from home because of some mischief I did, I would hide out at her house.

Now uNozulu was about 5 years older than me. So it was surprising that he was interested in a little girl who was still busy playing ugqaphu, ublack-toti, upuca, ugusha etc; this was 1986 people. At the same time though I was one of those kids at school that jumped grades and therefore ended up studying and playing with people that were three to four years older than me.

Before coming to chat me up, he used to pass by as we were playing and would look at me with that knowing smile that boys sometimes give when you have no clue. And the first time he got to speak to me he actually arranged with a friend of mine for her to bring me to him so that he could get me alone. Now this was the time when boys were not afraid to tell a girl that they love them and the girl never said yes or no but either wrote it down with her foot or simply nodded and that would seal the deal.

From then on we were inseparable; he would accompany me wherever I went. At the time my little sister was 2 years old and loved to follow me. I made the mistake of going with her to meet uNozulu and from that day on, she used that knowledge to blackmail me whenever she wanted something from me. She would chant "Mam' uZiyand' ebemi noMandulel' eSophakama". It's something that we laugh about to this day!

At the time I never realised how my relationship with him scared my parents. Since he came to our neighbourhood during school holidays my school life was never disrupted by our little liaison. He also never put pressure on me to do anything sexual with him cause I was too young and he knew this and waited for me to grow up.

But my parents were scared, I'm their first born and I guess they were afraid of me falling pregnant the minute I reached child bearing age, so they did everything to keep us apart. I recall an incident where my mother was talking to one of my aunts about the fact that she had intercepted a photograph that Nozulu had sent to me by post. This was the first time I was hearing and seeing this photograph and it was not even passed on to me. She took it and to this day I have no idea what she did with it. They even went to the extent of moving us out of the old neighbourhood to a new one. I never saw uNozulu again until I was doing my final year in high school.

He pitched up at my house that December at a party that my parents were throwing. He then told me about all the letters he had written to me and the phone calls that tried to make which were always intercepted by my parents. But by then it was already too late, I had grown up and did not feel anything for him. Even then my father ended that conversation and ordered me to get in the house which I was thankful for.

Fast forward fifteen years later and my father's brother living in the same house I grew up in as a kid with him close friends with uNozulu who now lives with his mother because his father had passed away. His life had since fallen apart, been in and out of jail and is addicted to alcohol and drugs which inevitably killed him. I look at him and am saddened by the wasted potential. 

Because of the family ties between his family and mine he has always been there for all the major functions in my family and whenever I went to visit my uncle, he would be there. For him it was now a great thing to be able to say "lo mntana wayesis' thandwa sam" and my entire family to this day still love to tease me it. Lot's of times I would refuse to give him money when he asked me for it cause I knew that it would go to the alcohol and drugs but there were times when I relented. There were days when he would be sober and lucid and I would ask him, what happened? What ever happened to the handsome, smart man with a bright future I used to know? His mother blamed his father's family, saying that they led him astray and he hung around with the wrong crowd which led to the jail time. I guess he fell and never learnt to pick himself up.

So I choose to remember him not as alcohol and drug addicted pauper that he was when he died rather as the young, smart, handsome boy I fell in love with when we were children with the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen in a man.

Rest in peace Nozulu