2019

My good friend Theo often jokes at the end of the year that some people stay up until midnight on New Year's Eve to welcome in the new year, while others stay up to make quite sure that the old year ends! In my case, 2019 definitely falls into the latter category — it has been quite a year, to put it mildly (Liz Windsor[1] might even refer to it as an annus horribilis, but then she's posh!).

The year got off to a good start. After a good break in January with Theo, Brenda, Caleb and cute kittens, it was back to work with a vengeance with a full, busy term of teaching. In the middle of February, Mindy arrived to join the household — an SPCA rescue pup with a stack of energy and attitude!

Liz arrived for her annual holiday at the beginning of March, and we did our usual road trip to Cape Town for the Argus, including popping in to see Kevin and Caryl in Pringle Bay on the way down. The Argus was really windy this year, which meant I had my slowest ride ever (but finished in my best position ever, so it looked like everyone else suffered even more than I did!). Liz and I enjoyed our "usual" break in the journey in Wilderness on the way down to Cape Town and back again — Wilderness is a really magical spot on the Garden Route.

At the end of Liz' visit to Grahamstown she and I headed up to Gauteng and then on to Botswana where a very kind and generous friend had invited us to spend a week at their game lodge on the banks of the Limpopo River, along with John and Elaine Broom, who had been the pastoral couple in our church when we were teenagers. That was a very special week of connecting with good friends, enjoying good food, and having wonderful game drives in the reserve. I would list all the game we saw, but that would make for a very long post (and I'm sure I would forget a whole lot!). One of the highlights was the daily sightings of the magnificent fish eagle who presides over the section of the Limpopo River that the lodge is built along. We also had very close-up sightings of a couple of lions, a rhino, several elephants and a large number of giraffes. Sadly, that was over all too quickly and we returned to Pretoria, from where Liz flew out back home to the Isle of Man, and I spent a few more days with Theo and Brenda. I got back to Grahamstown just in time for our annual graduation ceremonies, which were a wonderful celebration of our students' successes, as always.

Sadly, while we were in Botswana, I received the news that my good friend John McNeill had passed away from complications of kidney disease and leukaemia, which was the first major loss of the year. John and I had studied together at Rhodes, and then worked together for several decades, he in Information Systems, and myself in Computer Science. He had been ill for a while, and had been forced to take early, medical retirement, but he had handled the challenges with his usual good humour and grace.

Over Easter I had the opportunity to travel with a group of people from our church to Mozambique to deliver aid to the victims of the cyclone that had hit the area around Beira. That was done in conjunction with a couple of churches in the Durban area, with whom we have had a long-standing partnership in mission work just outside Maputo. The trip all the way up to Beira, on roads that were bad before the cyclone hit, was a testing time for all involved, but it was a privilege to be a part of the trip and to make a real difference in the lives of people who had lost almost everything. Our ultimate destination was Dondo, just outside Beira, which still had no mains water supply, six weeks after the cyclone (they had had electrical power restored by the time we got there), and so were reliant on bottled water and a well. On our return journey we stayed in a small village, Muxungue, where they still had neither power or water. We distributed food and clothing at Nhamatanda and at Dondo, working closely with Youth with a Mission (YWAM) in Dondo, who hosted us very graciously and generously. One of the blessings of the trip was our stop-over location in Vilankulos, where the owner of a lovely holiday resort with its own private beach had allowed us to use their camping facilities free of charge. That provided a very welcome oasis of rest, particularly on the return journey when we were able to spend an afternoon on the beach relaxing.

In June, amongst exams and various other things, there was a very good Rhodes Reunion for student from the 1980s and early 1990s. In July, I flew up to Pretoria to spend some time with Theo, Brenda and Caleb, including a trip to Ramsgate on the Natal coast. While I was in Pretoria, we had a visit from Brett, a Christian worker with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in Ecuador. I had got to know him through Jared and Jessica Hobson (he was one of Jared's groomsmen at their wedding), and he was visiting South Africa for a missions conference, just North of Pretoria. It was great to be able to show him around a bit before his conference started.

Theo, Brenda, Caleb and I headed down to Ramsgate after church on Sunday morning, arriving quite late in the evening. Sadly, a few hours after we arrived in Ramsgate the second loss of the year occurred: I received a phone call to inform me that Dad had passed away. He had been struggling with his health in recent years, in particular heart problems that had been slowing him down a lot. In June he had ended up in hospital in Port Elizabeth for a week, most of it in a cardiac high-care unit, due to excessive water retention, which was a side-effect of the heart problems. He bounced back very well from that, and seemed to be doing well, but then passed away rather suddenly, but peacefully, at home in the night. I managed to get a flight back from Durban to Port Elizabeth the next day, abandoning much of my belongings in Ramsgate and Pretoria (in particular, my laptop, ID book, etc. had been left in Pretoria when we drove down to Ramsgate). Mum handled the situation very well, but was obviously very shaken by it all (they would have been married 57 years in December). Liz managed to get a flight out to South Africa, and I flew up to Gauteng to meet her and reclaim my stuff from Theo and Brenda's. The memorial service was a very good celebration of Dad's life and his Christian faith, including three hymns that he had chosen in advance to be sung. The church was packed with a very wide range of people, testimony to the impact that Dad had had in many circles in Grahamstown, since they moved here in 2003.

While Liz was here, we applied for a visa for Mum to go and spend some time with her, and particularly to be there when Liz was recovering from a scheduled gall-bladder surgery. Unfortunately, the visa did not come through in time for Mum to be able to be there for the surgery. To compound matters, Virgin Atlantic cancelled Mum's flight from Jo'burg to London after a number of delays, and messed up the alternative arrangements badly. By the time Mum got to Liz, 24 hours later than scheduled, she was stressed-out, exhausted and dehydrated. When she complained of abdominal pain we assumed it was related to the stressful journey and recent loss of Dad. However, when the pain did not go away after a week, Liz got her to the hospital on the Isle of Man, where they did a very thorough battery of tests, including a CT scan, and discovered that Mum had advanced pancreatic cancer. Fortunately, Discovery Health was amazing and covered all the medical expenses in the Isle of Man. They then paid for Mum to fly back in business class, so that she would have a comfortable trip, and for Liz to fly out with her in order to assist her on the journey. I had flown up to Pretoria for our short mid-semester break, and stayed on to travel back to the Eastern Cape with them when they arrived from the U.K. Soon after we got back we saw an oncologist in Port Elizabeth who recommended a programme of chemotherapy to try to manage the progression and symptoms from the cancer (there was never any chance of a cure). The chemotherapy was a very new treatment, with minimal side-effects, but did require trips to Port Elizabeth for the medicine to be administered by drip, once a week (a treatment cycle consisted of two weeks of chemotherapy, followed by a "rest" week). After the first cycle of treatment, blood tests suggested that the cancer was still advancing, and half-way through the second cycle Mum became to weak to continue with the treatment. Mum's 81st birthday on 21 October was the last day she got out of bed for any extended period of time, and she passed away peacefully on the night of 9 November, with Liz and I sitting beside her, holding her hands.

We had been very blessed during that time to have visits from Liz' friend Kirsten from the Isle of Man, and Theo and Brenda. We also had amazing support from the local Hospice, both practically in terms of borrowing equipment from them and getting advice (I now know far more than I ever wanted to know about bed-sores and their treatment!), and emotionally in terms of dealing with the progression of Mum's disease. If you you're looking for a worthy cause to support, look no further than your local hospice organisation.

While going through Mum's cancer was a horrible experience for all of us, we were very grateful that Mum's suffering was not prolonged. Through it all she never complained, and only the last day did she report any pain (she had been on morphine, albeit fairly low doses, to control the pain since she was diagnosed on the Isle of Man). We were also very blessed and very grateful that Liz' employers were so understanding about her taking an extended period of leave, and that a very generous friend of Liz's was able to support her financially once it became unpaid leave. We had a lovely memorial service for Mum, which, again, was a very rich celebration of her life and her Christian faith. It was very special to have Theo with us all the way from Pretoria for the memorial service. Liz and I spent a few days in Cape Town after Mum's service, partly just to get a break, but mainly to spend some time with our cousin Jayne from Edinburgh, who was there as her father was undergoing surgeries for colon cancer and fluid pressure on the brain. That was a very good break and a good time to spend with Jayne, but too short, as always.

On our return to Grahamstown, Liz was a huge help sorting out Mum and Dad's things and helping to clear out their flat, before she had to return to the Isle of Man at the start of December. The next few weeks were spent wrapping up the end of the academic year, including a brief visit from Theo and Caleb who had come down to fetch Dad's car, which they had bought.

I ended the year by heading up to Pretoria for Christmas and New Year, where I am writing this, surrounded by good friends and cute foster kittens again. That has been a lot of fun, including taking the plunge to buy myself a new bicycle (which I have managed to put more than 200km on already!). New Year's Eve was spent watching the new Star Wars movie, and enjoying an evening of food, fun and laughter with a group of good friends.

As final thought for 2019, which has been very true for me through everything the year has brought:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort
(2 Corinthians 1:3)

The Argus (Cape Town Cycle Tour)

Liz and Mindy in March

The game lodge in Botswana (that's the Limpopo River)

YWAM base in Dondo outside Beira

Me and Brett

Jayne and Liz in Kalk Bay in November

Caleb and Theo taking delivery of Dad's car!

Cute kittens in Pretoria in December

Me and John (photo from a few years ago)

[1] Also known as Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.