Grade 12 pupil's quest for peace
Drawing strength and moving on from painful past
MY INSPIRATION to write this piece began when I met Professor Brian Williams at Mountview High School in Hanover Park, through his Peace Ambassadors programme. His messages of peace brought a sense of hope and fulfilment that maybe, growing up in a gang and poverty-stricken and violent area, isn’t so bad. My story carries with it many others of my past and my future. My eye sight is fading fast. Soon I will not be able to see the flowers or watch the sun set.
A woman gave birth to a baby boy out of wedlock. In the course of five years before the birth of her second son, she lost three unborn children. During those five years, she found out her husband was not only married to her, but to two other women, and that he fathered six other children.
Four years down the line, she had two boys and going through her sixth pregnancy with a man who started beating her with words, until she could hardly recognise herself. By the time her baby was born, the grieving process had already begun. Another one lost.
On January 19, 2000, a baby named Mumtaaz was born, premature at five and half months, and her vision was impaired. Being only a few years old, I already feared for my mother’s life and, barely eight, I had already witnessed so much. There was violence in my home.
Growing up different from other people, you tend to get picked on for things you cannot control. If you had asked me then, I would have said, “I want to change everything about myself; I want to be pretty, I want to be accepted, I want to die”. I grew up with a dad hardly being around, and when he was, I wished he weren’t.
By the age of 10, he kicked us out and we lived in our neighbour’s garage. My journey of self-discovery began when I had barely established myself. I moved around so much growing up, ironically in the same neighbourhood. At 13, I wanted to die. By 16, I questioned my existence, and when I finally felt like it was all over, that got me questioning my faith. “Ya, Allah, why me? What have I done wrong?”
In 2017 when I eventually stopped feeling sorry for myself, I met a couple through the school, and we became friends. I spent that Easter holiday in Pretoria, and the Isaacs family paid for a specialist. That is when I found out that my eye condition was called retinopathy of prematurity – both my optic disks were damaged and the nerve severed in my left eye.
By then, being normal seemed so far-fetched. My principal, Mr Heinrich Bowers, motivated me, and teachers like Ms Sonia Daniels and Ms Evonne Jantjies would say: “Authenticity is about being yourself, and ‘being normal’ is overrated.”
I thought being 18 – my mother’s only child to reach matric – would be hard, but when 2018 began, I found out that I was fast losing vision in my right eye as well.
Despite my childhood, I am generally a happy person. I currently live with both my “parents”. The situation hasn’t changed much, but my only escape is my education. In a world where you have no choice but to succeed in life, to give your nephews and nieces someone to look up to, things like eye conditions, bad fathers and bullies – with words that can break your inner warrior – cannot exist.
There is no amount of self-pity that can change my past, and no one but God can heal my eyes. My journey to seek inner peace has not been fulfilled yet. Yes, sometimes I do wish to alter a few things.
I’m satisfied with a warrior mother and brothers who have raised me into a young woman. I am truly blessed. It has taken quite a while for me to realise that. Each day I open my eyes, and although the battle within gets tougher, I choose to be an outstanding Peace Ambassador and role model for others.
The inevitable loss of my eyesight may limit me, but I shall triumph and continue my journey to seek the gift of inner peace, and to share it with others. I am 18 years old and determined to multiply the message of peace. I invite others to become a peace partner with me on this human journey that never truly ends.
The story of Mumtaaz is an opportunity for someone, somewhere in the world to become her peace partner. She needs specialist medical and other support to be able to achieve her mission to become a Peace Ambassador in the way that she dreams about. – Professor Brian Williams