‘I HONESTLY DON’T KNOW HOW TO CARRY ON’
Melanie Du Bois opens up after her nephew’s & sister’s shock suicide
IT’S a scene she’d like to erase from her memory but every time Melanie Du Bois closes her eyes the nightmarish events play out endlessly in her mind.
Her eldest sister, Lucia Wilson (46), is lying on the front stoep of her Joburg home, her life slipping away. Paramedics pummel her chest and try mouth-tomouth resuscitation, desperately fighting to keep her alive while her family stand around, hysterical and anxious, as it dawns on them she’s dying.
“When I close my eyes that’s the image I see,” the 7de Laan star says. And when she opens them again it’s with a sinking feeling when she realises it’s not a scene from a TV drama. This is her family’s reality.
Making it even more tragic is the fact that her sister’s suicide came just three months after her nephew Michael (23) – Lucia’s youngest child – also took his own life.
It’s a double blow for Melanie, whose marriage of 13 years to youth worker Reginald “Reggie” Botha is also going through a rocky patch.
Rumours of divorce have been swirling for some time but the couple are still trying to work through their problems.
Melanie involuntarily closes her eyes. Her voice is distant as she searches for the right words.
She still feels numb – it’s as if the reality of recent events hasn’t quite hit home, says the actress who plays fashion designer Felicity Daniels in the SABC2 soap.
“On that Tuesday [7 April] I was visiting a friend. It was one of the rare days we didn’t work.” She looks up, a hint of guilt in her eyes. “It’s even worse. We were off; I could have spent the day with Lucia . . .
“I got a message from my mom, Cathy, that I should phone Lucia’s husband, Tony; something had happened. Something was wrong.”
Melanie immediately drove towards Lucia’s house. “When I got Tony on the phone he was in a state. He was incoherent and said, ‘Lucia . . . She’s not breathing . . .’ ”
Melanie was beside herself with worry but not for a moment did she believe her sister would do what she’d threatened to during the past three months.
“I was driving from Sophiatown and got stuck in the worst imaginable traffic on the M2 highway.
“When I got to Lucia’s house in Mayfield Park there was an ambulance outside. My parents [Cathy and Benny] were there, my middle sister, Tania [ Jordan], Tony and his family . . . The paramedics tried to save her
‘The paramedics tried to save her but it was
too late’
but it was too late.”
Melanie doesn’t want to talk about the details of Lucia’s suicide – they’re too traumatic.
“I slept over at her house that night,” she recalls. “We were all in shock. Some people talked, others cried.
“I spent a long time sitting next to Lucia’s body. I sat until 1 am when the hearse came. It all felt so unreal.”
THE new year ha d b arely started when the first shock hit the family on 3 January. “I was with my mom. Lucia was at the gym. Michael had gone out with a friend. All we know is he was arrested and about 15 minutes after he got locked up he was found dead in the police holding cell. He hanged himself with his T-shirt.”
She doesn’t want to expand on the charges Michael faced, the circumstances of his arrest or what caused his death because the family plan to take legal action against the police.
Lucia was frantic when she phoned Melanie to tell her the news. “She was crying and screaming – all I could make out was that I had to pray for him.”
By the time Melanie and Cathy arrived at the police station Michael was dead.
“Everyone was crying. Lucia couldn’t get a word out.”
Melanie again struggles to find words as her eyes well up with tears.
“Lucia was sitting alone outside in the rain.
“She couldn’t get her head around it. She just kept saying, ‘It’s my baby.’ “I’d never seen her like that. She didn’t want anyone near her.”
Melanie sounds as if she’s talking to herself. “I told her I wouldn’t talk. I promised I just wanted to sit with her. We stayed there for what felt like hours.”
Michael and his elder brother, Jonathan (24), were Lucia’s whole life, Melanie tells us. “They were very close.”
In addition to being Michael’s aunt, Melanie was also his godmother.
“I changed his nappies, babysat him and saw him grow up – he was like my own child. He was always joking; he loved partying and people.”
LUCIA wasn’t the same after her son’s death. “She wasn’t coping,” Melanie recalls. “She was in a very dark place.”
She spoke continually about Michael and refused to seek professional help or take medication. But even though her sister sometimes spoke of wanting “to go to Mikey”, Melanie never thought she’d attempt suicide.
“I don’t know if others saw it coming but I didn’t for a moment think she’d take her own life.”
At Melanie’s 40th birthday party in March she was relieved to notice that her sister seemed to be in good spirits. It was the first time she’d seen Lucia, a product manager, smiling since the tragedy.
“I thought, ‘At last there’s light at the end of this dark tunnel’ .”
Melanie looks small and fragile in figurehugging pants and a black T-shirt with a picture of her with Lucia and Tania (42) on the front. “I printed it and took it to her memorial service. I don’t think it’s hit me; it hasn’t all sunk in yet. I’m still in denial. But I’m seeing a psychologist – I have to talk about it. And I’m taking antidepressants.”
Michael’s mysterious death, the circumstances under which he died and the lack of information from the police continue to be a huge source of frustration for the family.
“No one really knows what happened,” Melanie says. “Mikey’s death is still an open wound. Now we have one hurt upon another. The family’s devastated. I honestly don’t know how to carry on from day to day. I take it one moment at a time. My mom is heartbroken, my dad and sister . . . There are no words.”
The last time she saw Lucia was at a family meal at her house on Good Friday. “My dad had specially made a cask for Michael’s ashes. It was the first time she saw it and she completely went to pieces and started crying. It was exactly three months after Mikey’s death.”
Reggie has been her pillar of strength during the past few months. After what happened to Lucia, Melanie was so grief-stricken she could hardly speak. And it didn’t help that two days after Lucia’s death she and Tania had to formally identify her body.
“It was very difficult,” Melanie says. “She was still covered in blood. They hadn’t even washed her.
“If the phone rang, Reggie would answer it. He took over all the responsibilities. He dealt with all the things I couldn’t cope with.”
Reggie told their daughter, Roxy (8), about Auntie Lu, as they called her. “He did it in such a nice way,” Melanie says. “He explained she’d been sick with grief and had gone away. Roxy’s an old soul. She understands. She constantly gives me hugs and tells me how much she loves me.”
Three months earlier Reggie had also had to break the news to Roxy about Michael’s death. “I simply couldn’t. The first thing Roxy asked was who was going to play with her now.”
Whenever Melanie was going through a difficult patch it was always Lucia she turned to. “I still constantly talk to her in my head.” She has fond memories of their childhood. “I was always the tomboy. Lucia was the glamour girl – she was the one with the perfect body. She was always a sparkly girlie girl with her high heels, the fashionista. Tania was the serious one.”
Because of the seven-year age gap – Lucia would have turned 47 later this year – the sisters didn’t have much in common when they were kids but they became closer in adulthood. “We were typical sisters. We’d fight like cat and dog but we’d also support each other and were always there for each other. When I had to go away for work, Lucia always looked after Roxy. She and Vuyelwa Booi [who played Alyce in 7de Laan] are her godmothers.”
Lucia had also gone through a rough patch last year and like Melanie was relishingishing the chance to start a new chapter in 2015. “We decided it was going to be our year – we’d be good to ourselves and make the most of the year.”
Now she’s struggling to come to terms with the fact that Lucia’s gone.
“Sometimes I don’t think she loved us enough – that’s why she did it,” she says sadly. Melanie says it’s extremely important that all the family members, especially the young children, don’t think suicide is the only solution when things go wrong. “It’s not a way out. Not for me.” She’s had to put her marital problems on hold for now. “I’m not going to make any decisions while I’m so emotional. Reggie and I have been together for 20 years. We’ve been through hard times.”
She had in-vitro treatment (IVF) twice before giving birth to Roxy. After that she had two more fertility treatments and two
‘I didn’t for a moment think she’d take her own life’
miscarriages. All of this took its toll on their marriage.
“It was as if nobody could understand what I was going through. It was a very difficult time. For me it [ falling pregnant] became an obsession. Reggie didn’t want me to have further treatments and I wanted to continue. All I wanted was another child but for him it was too emotional watching what I went through when the IVF was unsuccessful.”
She admits that because she’s unable to have more children Roxy became her whole world. Melanie pauses for a moment. “I don’t really have words. My brain isn’t functioning right now. Sometimes I don’t know how I’ll get up in the morning. All I know is life will never be the same again.”