Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - April 8, 2007

IT HAS taken me several visits to the psychologist to come to terms with my mother's death on June 30 2005.

I am a 35-year-old mother of two.

My mom worked hard to support us (me, my two sisters and my brother). My father had died when my baby sister was just a year old.

In about the year 2000, my mom's finger joints and wrists started getting painful. The doctors at the hospital diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis.

When she started taking time off work for treatment, the relationship between her and her employer soured. Seeing as we were all working, we encouraged her to go back home and enjoy the fruits of her labour. She reluctantly left Johannesburg for KwaZulu-Natal in 2001.

She was very happy at home and enjoyed spending time with her mom, since she had grown up without her.

Things were okay until one day when my sister's daughter answered when I phoned. She said to me: "You know, Auntie, Gogo is very sick and she doesn't want you to know."

I was shocked as I had spoken to my mom the previous day. But my granny confirmed it, saying that mommy had night sweats and had been coughing a lot for about three weeks. A cold shiver went down my spine as I thought of TB.

My mom did not want to take my calls and I asked my brother to phone her instead. When he did, she picked up the phone and started crying. My brother then phoned me in a hysterical state as he had never seen or heard mom cry.

We immediately organised to go and see her. That Friday night we arrived at home at about eight. We hooted for quite a while at the gate before a figure appeared from the house and walked slowly towards the gate.

I can't explain what I felt when I realised that the little girlish figure was my mother.

We couldn't contain ourselves and we started crying. And for about 10 to 15 minutes nobody said a word, we all just sat there, heads bowed. One by one we went to our separate rooms to sleep.

Nothing could have prepared us for the further shock that lay ahead the next morning.

I was up early and realised my mom was too. My eyes couldn't believe what I saw. She was sitting in bed without a doek on her head. Her head was shaved and she had the worst case of shingles I have ever seen - blisters open and oozing fluid. She had lost about 50% of her body weight. And granny had just changed her sheets because she woke up soaked in sweat every day.

I could hardly recognise her.

But her beautiful smile was still there, and her face brightened when she saw me.

We took her to a specialist and were told she would need to start on antiretrovirals (ARVs) immediately. I could not understand why she needed them: she was my mom, how could she be HIV-positive? Denial, anger, confusion and betrayal came upon me.

I refused to see HIV in my mother, and kept on saying, "No, not her."

On the way home, nobody said a thing. I guess each of us was dealing with the situation in our own way. Needless to say, mom succumbed to the disease a couple of months later, having been stripped of her dignity.

I made a pledge to teach my family, young and old, about the disease. I also made a pledge that I would always know my status, meaning testing regularly.

And I will try to stop negative talk about HIV, like "Z3ed" or "slimming disease".

The reason I mention this is that after my mom died, we discovered she had been living with the virus for more than five years and had been attending the HIV clinic at the hospital. But she did not disclose to any one - maybe because of the way we commented on the disease or about people living with it.

I miss Sis Deliwe a lot, especially when it comes to mother's day and all the important family holidays. But I know for sure that her spirit will live forever in our lives.

# Clinical psychologists Khumo Seopela and Kgamadi Kometsi are offering HIV counselling free every Saturday between 9am and noon at 4 Biermann Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg. Bookings on a first-come, first-served basis.

To book, fax 011-280-5151, or e-mail counselling@sundaytimes.co.za. The sessions will be private.

# Everyone Knows Someone is a Sunday Times campaign to encourage people to know their HIV status, and is aimed at destigmatising the infection. We publish the personal experiences (and, where the writer feels comfortable, photos) of people in South Africa living with HIV or caring for loved ones with the virus. The stories appear in the newspaper or on our website. We will use as many as we can. E-mail your story to: everyoneknows@sundaytimes.co.za or fax it to 011-280-5151.

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