Ours is a country where criminals wreak havoc on family life

I did not write this column last week. It was not because I was sick or anything like it. Come to think of it, that’s a lie.

I was sick alright. Sick in my soul. Sick to my stomach.

You see, this pitch black man in a cap is a father of four. Two 21-year-old boys and two girls, aged nine and 14 months.

Last week, I was feeling very disgusted and angry because my second-born son, Kabelo, had an encounter with uncultured imbeciles.

He was a victim of crime.

The emotion of hatred engulfed my humongous melanin-dripping being from head to toe upon learning that three good-for-nothing scumbags decided to terminate his loving relationship with his mobile device when they mugged him in Johannesburg.

The modus operandi was the same as the one you’ve seen in the videos showing the brazen and wanton criminality playing out on the streets of the hellhole that is Jozi — in broad daylight.

The scumbags accosted him.

One grabbed him from behind.

The second removed the phone from the pocket. The third pulled out an object.

The bastard sunk the blade into the flesh of Kabelo’s left side of the chest, just below the nipple.

Thankfully, the weapon didn’t penetrate him deeply to the point of doing severe damage to the vital organs.

They took his cellphone. Not his life. Thankfully. He could easily have been a death statistic.

Feeling helpless, or hopeless even, I summoned the spirit of my ancestors to spare his life

Had he died, his death was most likely going to be yet another entry in an evergrowing pile of cold cases.

Most of those whose paths crossed his found in him a firm friend

How could it not? Ours is a country where a case of a prominent goalkeeper, captain of his club and country, was shot dead in a house full of people.

Nobody has been apprehended for his callous murder. October 26 will be the sixth anniversary of Senzo Meyiwa’s murder.

The shooter that cut off his life in his prime is roaming the streets with gay abandon like the three oxygen thieves who almost stole Kabelo’s life.

Good grief, we could have been preparing for a funeral, sighed my wife as a waterfall of waterworks streamed down her face.

Another family had a funeral yesterday. In Matsulu, Nelspruit, the Lubisi family laid to rest their son.

The executive editor of City Press, Dumisane, a fit as a fiddle 44-year-old, succumbed to a heart attack.

Most of those whose paths crossed his found in him a firm friend whose wonderful heart had room for everyone.

Dumisane dropped everything and came to the aid of whomever called on him for assistance, about whatever.

His latest act of benevolence was just a few weeks ago.

A lady we knew celebrated her birthday recently. Her brothers were not there to send the beast she wanted slaughtered to the ancestors in celebration of her big day.

She informed me that our brother was the one who did the deed.

A beautiful memorial service was held in his honour at the Johannesburg Country Club on Wednesday.

Having become an avid runner, his athletics club paid tribute to him by running the 21km route he ran last week Friday.

It is still unfathomable to many that Dumisane is no more. His three boys, Thando, Siyamthanda and Wandile, had a doting father who defied the stereotype of black men being mere sperm donors.

He was present in their lives. I know. I saw it. Many a time. May they gain strength from the teachings of their fantastic father.

One takes comfort in the fact that the A-Team, as father referred to his boys, will not swell the ranks of the aforesaid scum of the earth. If they hold on to his wise counsel, they will carry the legacy of his teachings and come nowhere near being the menace to society like that trio of hoodlums. Lala Lubisi. Rest Mnaka.