‘When I look at their home I see them standing there’
WHEN Karien Goliath arrived at the burnt-down house where her four-year-old twin daughters lived with their father and stepmother, the police wouldn’t let her in. But she had to see.
“One looked like she was using her hands to shield from the fire. The other tried to nestle under one of the adults to protect herself from the flames,” said Goliath, describing the scene where the four bodies were found.
“I thought about how they must have screamed and what pain they went through and what they felt. Or if they screamed: ‘Mamma come and help me!’ ”
The storm that ripped through the Western Cape this week tore little Sameeka and Sakeema from their mother.
Goliath found their bodies on Wednesday alongside those of their father, Samuel van Heerden, and their stepmother, Poppie van Heerden, on a farm near Kraaifontein. It is believed the house burnt down after it was struck by lightning.
“I feel like there is a hole inside of me. I cannot describe it, I feel empty,” said Goliath, a farm labourer. She said the girls lived with their father on a neighbouring farm because she did not have the means to care for them.
Her nightmare started early on Wednesday when word reached her that the roof had been ripped off the Van Heerdens’ home.
She and her 12-year-old son, Lee, ran there, only to find the family dead.
The shock of the news caused physical pain to the Van Heerdens’ grandson, Raymond Geswindt, 17, who was close to the twins and visited the family almost every weekend.
“They were my only family,” a trembling Raymond said on Friday, clutching his right arm, which has hurt since the day of the fire.
“My mother died when I was a year old, and then my mother’s cousin took care of me and she also died. After that I stayed with my great-grandmother who also died, and now my grandmother is dead.”
Raymond got each of the girls a dog and the three would take them on walks together. He remembers how the twins enjoyed playing kwaito music on his phone.
To their mother they were the sweetest children. “They were always smiling, they were always laughing, always happy. They would jump on my lap or say at once: ‘Mamma, pick me up.’ ”
The twins visited Goliath a week before their death. “They jumped onto my lap and we sang . . . ” Goliath paused to compose herself “. . . we sang ‘The Lord made me beautiful’.”
Goliath has decided to leave her home. The memory of her girls shouting “Hello, Mamma” from their house is too much to bear.
“I can literally see their house from the farm where I live. There are only walls left. When I look at it I see them standing there.”