SEEING as it’s the month of love I thought I would talk about love in this piece. Us girls are conditioned from a young age to believe in love and soul mates and a “happily ever after”, be it in the fairytales our mothers read to us as bedtime stories or the romantic comedies that used to monopolise eTV’s Chick Flick Thursdays.
We grow up with this idea that a soul mate has to be some handsome man, who completes our sentences and takes us on romantic walks on the beach or a number of other horrendous clichés that have become synonymous with romance, yet I have begun to think that this notion that we’ve been spoon fed from infancy isn’t exactly true.
You see, my grandmother is an amazing woman. She basically raised four children on her own as. Although my grandpa was a charming, handsome a man, he had a weakness for alcohol.
Yet she remained always committed to this marriage and for this I salute her. However, I don’t think my grandfather was her soul mate, that person came in an unexpected form.
I believe that a soul mate is exactly what that term implies, a person whose soul, your soul recognises as a companion – a single person brought into this world to bring you solace, laughter, and comfort.
It is a beautiful thing when this person can also bring romance into your life, however, I think that this is not always the case.
For my grandma, her soul mate came into her life some 20 years ago in the form of what some refer to as a ‘maid’, but Auntie Nokuthula is so much more that.
This woman is family. Her children are my cousins, her sisters my aunts, and through it all she has been a pillar of strength, a friend, a confidante, a daughter, and sister to my grandmother.
They’ve cried together, buried loved ones at each other’s side, welcomed children into the world with each other, lived a lifetime in one another’s lives.
I never really realised the magnitude of their relationship until recently, when I went to visit my grandma this past December.
My grandma repeatedly spoke about how this was the first New Year’s eve they had spent apart in years. It felt as if there was a something missing from the festivities with her gone.
A few days later, upon Auntie Nokuthula’s arrival, the look on my grandma’s face when she saw her can be summed up in one word. Joy.
The love these two women share for one another is an everlasting one, one that I pray I experience someday.
However, the whole point in this long story that probably has absolutely zero bearing on you, is that, love is love no matter where it comes from.
Don’t obsess over finding this image of what a soul mate should be, rather love the people in your life with a ferocious passion, because you never know in what form your soul mate may present himself or herself.
Have a great month of love.
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