My Angel, My Hero, My Teacher and My Miracle
A Women’s Day Tribute To The Four Women Who Shape My Life

My childhood is a bit of a blur, certainly happy, always felt loved, confused by my parents ‘sudden divorce’ but certainly no memories of trauma or heartbreak that I can remember. Perhaps those were ‘simpler days’; less expectation, less pressure and certainly less therapy than we subject our kids to today.

School, well I think I loved it. Not the academic side you know, I was much too lazy for that. Primary school is a distant memory of fun and laughter and young girls giggling and passing notes. Sport? Well I was really good at chess, pretty average at most other things but thanks to plenty of encouragement and a belief instilled in me from a young age that the only thing I shouldn’t do was not try, I persevered and usually made at least the second team. Chess… well that was another story. Loved the game, loved the strategy, loved leaving school early to play in tournaments. Now I am trying to teach my 5 year old daughter and if you ask her she will tell you that she is already beating me!

In standard five my parents informed me that they had decided I should attend an all boys’ school. I have vague memories of screaming and shouting and NOT getting my own way and so it was off to Highlands Boys High School. I LOVED IT… what a place, boys could be boys and girls… well there were always Waverly Girls down the road! There was certainly no snob appeal attached to attending Highlands Boys, with every conceivable nationality and religion represented (This was South Africa pre 1994 so the school was however racially segregated)

After that it was off to Varsity with no real plan and two short years later I was dressed in brown and marching the dusty parade grounds of Heidelberg. I left the army and the next year in 1984 My Angel was to leave. After a long battle with Leukaemia, my mom passed away leaving me filled with plenty of questions and not too many answers. I remember her funeral so well, people coming up to me and remarking how young she was. Young, she was 48, that wasn’t young… well I was 22 and 48 seemed like a life time away. It was only on my 40th birthday that I realised just how young she had been and how much she had missed out on. My brother once remarked to me “Did we know we were so young then, in fact do we realise we are so young now?” Do any of us? (you can read my article “One Month To Live” by CLICKING HERE)

She remains in my heart and I am certain in my psyche, her kind manner and unbelievable strength especially through her illness will always have a strong influence on me. I know her spirit is present in my own daughters who, though never having met her, carry her spirit. To this day I am still reminded by people I meet who used to visit her in her wool shop in Glenhazel, what a special lady she was how many lives she touched.

It was just before my 40th birthday that I met My Hero. On a trip up to Jhb from George, where I owned a restaurant (Reel ‘n Rustic) I was introduced to her on a blind date. Love at first sight? Well I don’t think so; in fact I barely think we liked each other. Just kidding, there was a spark and a connection that was to grow hot and fast. A few short months later we where engaged and by April of the following year, married.

Soon it was family time and Mrs Addict was pregnant, my wife and my life was to become My Hero. God certainly knew what he was doing when he decided that women should carry the baby. No man could do it; no man could go through those emotional and physical changes and still retain that beauty and no man could go through labour! Sports stars, war veterans, supermen and WWF wrestlers have NOTHING on her. Any man who has been through labour along side his wife and witnessed child birth can ever deny the inner strength that is woman. And if she was My Hero then, she was to become My Super Hero in those first few months of childhood. As she nursed our daughter through colic and all night feeding sessions, she never once walked into her room without a smile and a soft word and never once bemoaned her lot… how many men could do that?

Of course My Miracle is now seven and a half years old, gorgeous and has her daddy wrapped around her little finger, exactly where every little girl should have her dad. She is a little cheeky (ok a lot) a little wild (ok a lot) very funny and no one laughs at her jokes more than she does. Regardless of your religious convictions, experiencing child birth is experiencing a miracle and to those who come after me I offer only one piece of advice… Be there! Not just physically but mentally and emotionally too, it will be a life changing, future shaping event that will stay with you and move you forever. She is growing up too fast, not for her but for me! She walks, she talks, she sings laughs and cries and despite our best efforts to teach her better she insists on growing up just like us. As I said previously, she is alert, she is bright, she is funny, she is beautiful and she is all the things that every father says about his little girl!

And what of My Teacher? Well she is fifteen years old and her lessons are taught to me every day. She is my step daughter and although step parenting, I believe, remains one of life’s great challenges, she has taught me more about myself than all who have gone before her. She is teaching me patience and understanding (I do not always pass that test), love and compassion and she has introduced me to the joy and laughter that is childhood. Our rides to school every morning were filled with fun and laughter (at fifteen it is now more accepted to travel to school with iPod and Cell phone) and our evening wrestling matches, although occasionally bruising were wild and just enough to drive mom mad. Now that she is fifteen and has discovered MSN, iPods, Mxit, Facebook and boys, I am not as cool as I used to be. We have argued, we have fought, we have bumped heads a thousand times and probably will a thousand times more but we do love and respect each other and have become a family. Step parenting can make you feel like a king it can make you feel like a complete idiot but as my wife reminds me OFTEN if it is tough for me, how tough is it for a 13 year old girl?

So now you have met My Angel, My Hero, My Teacher and My Miracle and there are a few more woman who I need to mention. One is a woman who has helped me understand the challenges of step parenting and just been a friend to me through so much, she is my step mom. Not the evil step mother of fairy tales and scary stories, but a guiding force, a person to talk to and a friend to all of us.

Another is my mother in law, who in her quiet but determined way bonds the family together and who’s recent battle with illness has helped us all understand how challenging and unpredictable life can be.

Last and certainly not least are the wonderful women who helped bring me up and are now helping to bring up my children. These remarkable women have through circumstances had to give up the chance to bring up their own children and watch them grow to help us all do that with our children and to them particularly we all owe a huge debt of gratitude and a whole heap of respect.

And so to all the women in my life, I say thank you, thank you for your love your understanding and your lessons BUT most important thank you for putting up with my CRAP.

When this article was published most of my friends called to say “Great article, but thanks for nothing! My wife wants to know why I can’t write a letter like that to her” So here’s the thing, I can write and express myself through my words but I too have many faults and shortcomings. I do however know that we are all trying, trying as husbands, trying as fathers, trying as friends, faltering occasionally and falling down now and again but getting up and getting on with our love and our life.

In conclusion I offer you only one quote, one piece of truly inspiring piece of writing that has often (correctly or incorrectly) been attributed to a truly inspirational writer… Ralph Waldo Emerson.

To laugh often and much: To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you lived. This is to have succeeded.