It’s been over 18 months since I was bitten by a night adder in our garden.
My baby was strapped to my chest, asleep, as I admired the snake lily just pushing up its first glossy leaves from a bare patch of soil.
My toddler was standing next to me, chatting away about something that Bob the Builder had done.
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I moved my foot and felt a sharp prick that was sore enough to make me jump and lift my foot to peer round the side of my baby in the carrier.
As I did, I saw the slender scaled body with its classic rhombic kaleidoscope.
An indignant adder slithered into the nearby groundcover as it puffed up and down to show its disapproval at being stepped on.
I couldn’t believe it.
But the hole just above my ankle proved that takkies are useless against snakes, even smallish ones.
So much has changed, but I still stood in front of this year’s blooms in wonder.
As I looked at the bloom in that very spot a year later, I could hear my now one-year-old and his brother playing happily somewhere in the same garden.
The snake lily had sprung its first ever flower, the magnificent paint brush that comes up a few weeks before any leaves start to appear. It was exquisite.
The tree it was underneath was finally tall enough for me to stand under.
Our home was now a three-room farmhouse instead of the one-room cottage it had been just the year before.
In a way it feels like I’ve run a marathon in that time of transition.
A slow race to escape a coronavirus, a sprint to ration food as insane riots shut down all safe access to town, a slog uphill through load shedding, Issa, and another year of cancelled birthday parties.
It’s been like holding up an elephant while interval training through a growing sense of isolation.
If there was ever a doubt that digital connections aren’t enough, the pandemic has been living proof.
We need face-to-face school, church, and friends. We need someone to call when pain sinks its teeth into our vulnerable moments. It is almost time now to move on.
Who do you call on? Neighbours, family, God?
There will always be night adders in the garden, but we don’t have to let them take us by surprise.
Oh, and we can choose to wear gum boots the next time.
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