My dad was quite an amazing man. He would eventually succumb to Parkinson's disease like his own dad.
He was known by the Zulus as Mastelek which means strong one. The name was probably given to him as he had a short fuse, which I also inherited. I recall him working on a tractor one day when I was still a young boy. He was struggling to remove a bolt. He eventually resorted to using a 10 pound hammer. What then happened is that he hit his thumb, which then split open. I laughed, received a backhand from dad and ended up with my backside on the floor. Lesson: Never laugh when Dad does something stupid!
A while later we had a Sunday braai. Some monkeys had decided to make amok in the mealie fields. Typically, we would chase the monkeys away using shotguns but this Sunday my father decided to demonstrate his .456 rifle to his friend, the magistrate of New Hanover. He had purchased the rifle to go and hunt Lions but my mother never allowed him to go. My dad mostly compiled with my mom's wishes. So he sighted this mini-cannon at the monkeys and blasted away. The blasts were immense and if you didn't hold the stock tight and lean slightly forward the recoil would break your shoulder! The monkeys exited out of those mealies like ten thousand puffadders was chasing them. They crossed over a potato field next to the mealie field that was being irrigated. My dad lined up another monkey, pressed the trigger and the next moment a huge spurt of water erupted in the middle of the field as the bullet smashed the irrigation pipes. I had learnt the previous lesson well, I did not laugh.
Early in life he was involved in a petrol tank explosion. He welded a leaking tank, not realizing that even though it was empty the fumes would explode. His life was saved by a doctor who had served during the Second World War in North Africa and was familiar with treating the burns that often occurred with soldiers that had been under attack with artillery incendiaries. The healed burns were visible on his body especially his legs. My dad wouldn't have survived if an experienced burn doctor wasn't available in the improbable backwater of Greytown, Kwazulu Natal. The doctor suggested altitude treatment and as a result my dad became a pilot. The flights were subsidized and thus cheaper.
My Grandfather wasn't extremely wealthy, so my dad leased a farm in Richmond from a wealthy landowner. The terms of the lease were so written that a missing payment would result in a forfeit, but after a number of years, my dad would become the owner. My dad was struggling to make the payments, so he went to visit the landowner. When he arrived at the house he encountered the wife walking down the driveway. He said he had come to talk to her husband, and she responded by saying her husband was a bastard and continued on down the driveway. The talks with the bastard weren't fruitful and my dad was coming to terms with the realization that he would lose the farm. He also heard that the man had entered into these type of contracts before and had seized the farms on default.
My dad would buy the Natal Witness religiously every day. He says that one day, on the front page, the headline story was about his nemesis. An attempted reconciliation between him and his wife had ended in disaster. She had shot and killed him. He went to see the lawyer of the estate, who signed over the farm ownership to him. My dad said he immediately went to the pub to celebrate with his friends. It was an amazing bit of fortuitous tragedy.
My dad would wake up before 3am in the morning. He would say it was because he had been a farmer but I later found out the reason. He was unable to sleep due to having witnessed traumatic events. My dad was a police reservist when I was still in primary school. He was a Sergeant and one day he just stopped. Later I would find out from him that he had been transporting a prisoner to the police station. At the station the Captain walked out, removed his pistol and executed the prisoner. That Captain would eventually end up in prison and appear before the TRC.I now have some insight into how he must have felt (albeit not the same circumstances).
My dad would eventually come and live with me in the last years of his life. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's and told me he did not want to die in pain like his own dad. His last month was like that as he had lost the ability to speak. One day he was struggling to breath and an ambulance was called. They immediately rushed him to Fourways Life Emergency. When I arrived there, I was dressed in my work suit and tie. There was no-one at his bed so I picked up the file at the end of the bed and started reading it. The emergency doctor came in and started relaying medical terms to me, most of it gibberish to my ears. I nodded waiting for an opportunity to interrupt him. After about a minute, I realized he had mistook me for the referring neurologist, who he had just requested be called. When he finally stopped speaking, I said to him this was my dad. Instead of drawing the conclusion that I wasn't the referring doctor but the son, he assumed I was both! He told me bluntly that we both knew it was terminal. I told him that my dad had told me he did not want to die in pain like this. The emergency doctor nodded, said he understood and said he would admit him to ICU, and have morphine administered. I said yes and immediately my dad was on a drip in ICU. I never corrected the misunderstanding with the emergency doctor.
I had morphine administered as well, when I had broken my leg on the rugby field. It does wipe out the feeling of pain. My dad passed away within a few hours and that event was a relief. In the last moments of his life a set of co-incidents had occurred in a similar manner that had happened previously in his life, that made things better and he went without pain. If they day comes, I hope my sons can do the same for me. as my morality is not to live life as a vegetable.
My dad provided and paid for me to be educated at the University of Stellenbosch and would do the 12 hour round trip so that I could attend Grey College. He is the single biggest influence on how my life was developed. Siyabonga!
* Originally published on LinkedIn by Ronald Bartels.
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