Family Re-Union
Sabsy
'Who brought my daughter to me? Tell them thank you'
Thirty years after being rejected by her family, Sandra Laing finds her
mother again
BORN to white parents, Sandra Laing was 10 in 1966 when she was
expelled from school and reclassified coloured for having dark skin and
curly hair. Ten years later her family turned their backs on her when
she married a black man. Her father died without speaking to her again
and her two brothers still shun her, but this week Sandra met her
mother after nearly 30 years. KAREN LE ROUX, the journalist who traced
her mother, witnessed their reunion
IT IS a scorching afternoon in suburban Amandashof, Pretoria. Sandra
Laing cuts a lonely figure in the doorway of unit 89 of the Amandashof
Retirement Village.
The moment she has been aching for for nearly 30 years has arrived: she
is about to meet her mother. Her hands tightly clenched, she watches
intently as Sister Ines Schonken pushes the wheelchair towards her. The
chair stops.
The bright eyes of its small, grey-haired occupant look up to meet her
daughter's. For a couple of breathless seconds their eyes lock, then
Sannie Laing opens her arms and Sandra bursts into tears, even before
she stoops down to accept her mother's embrace.
"At last. My daughter, Sandra." The soft words of Sannie Laing. A
mother who did not know whether her only daughter was dead or alive.
Sandra holds on tightly to her mother's shoulders . It takes a few
minutes before she is able to utter her first words. "Mammie, Mammie."
We are all - myself, photographer Elizabeth Sejake and Schonken -
overwhelmed as Sannie Laing is wheeled through to the lounge.
With the aid of a walking stick, the 80-year-old Sannie makes herself
comfortable in an armchair. Sandra settles close to her mother.
Now Sannie really looks at her daughter, disbelief mingling with
unutterable joy on her face. "Can it be true. Is it really my
daughter?"
Sannie looks for Schonken: "Who brought my daughter to me? Tell them
thank you. Thank you very, very much."
We leave Sannie and Sandra alone.
The last time Sandra saw her mother she was a thin, longlegged 18-year-
old and already the mother of two children from her first husband,
Petrus Zwane. One day when she went to visit her parents to show off
her newborn second son, Sannie gave her a box of baby clothes and asked
her not to come back.
Sandra explains: "My father was furious because I married a black man.
He threatened to first shoot me and then himself if I ever put my foot
over his threshold again."
Sandra's world crumbled. In the years that followed, Sandra turned that
last scene over and over in her mind, and tried to make it more
bearable by opting to believe that her final rejection was her father's
decision, forced on her mother.
In 1989 hope shone briefly for a reunion. Sandra tracked down a cousin
in Amsterdam who told her that her father, Abraham, had died the
previous year. She also gave Sandra her mother's address.
Sandra immediately wrote, and received a single letter back. Though in
it Sannie expressed her love and enclosed some money, the letter
began: "Ek skryf sonder adres ." (I write without address.) Sannie was
moving - to Cape Town she said - and she wanted no further contact.
In December last year Sandra visited her father's grave for the first
time. There she made a decision: to trace her mother, instead of
tormenting herself with dreams that one day she would simply appear.
The search proved an uphill struggle.
Sandra lives in a small house in Tsakane, on the East Rand, with no
telephone. Although her husband has a job in Springs and Sandra runs a
creche from home, there is little enough money to spare for public
telephone calls, let alone travel.
One of the biggest obstacles to Sandra's quest was, tragically, her
brothers. Though Sandra had already traced Leon and Adriaan Laing, they
had both, on several occasions, refused to see or even speak to her -
let alone pass on the details of their mother's whereabouts.
In desperation, Sandra turned to her acquaintances in the media. I met
Sandra shortly before Christmas at the SABC where she was being
interviewed for a Special Assignment documentary about her life.
I discussed Sandra's dilemma with my own mother, Nancy, over Christmas
lunch. Her words persuaded me to act: "I do not think there is a mother
who would not love to make peace with her child - regardless of the
circumstances."
At first my inquiries seemed fruitless. Misleading information led
Sandra and me to Klerksdorp, then to the Northern and the Western Cape -
to no avail.
After each failed trip, I would drop off an increasingly sad and
frustrated Sandra at her home.
Then, last Monday, after another round of telephone calls, I received
fresh information that had a positive ring.
By Wednesday, with the help of a friend who is an ex-police officer, we
had confirmed that Sannie Laing was living at the Amandashof Retirement
Village near Pretoria.
On Thursday morning I called Sandra and said: "Get ready. I'm fetching
you at 11.30. Your mother is well and living in Pretoria."
Sandra was - typically - very quiet when I arrived to fetch her. I
think she was trying to prepare herself for yet another dead end. We
drove to Pretoria in almost total silence. It was only when we arrived
and the nurses told us that Sannie was indeed there and ready to meet
Sandra, that I saw the relief in her eyes.
By the time we rejoined mother and daughter after their first meeting,
the atmosphere in the room was a lot more relaxed. Sannie, though frail
from a recent stroke, is full of spunk and was telling Sandra about
life in the retirement village, and how much it cost her to get her
hair permed. "And here I am," she said with a laugh, "in one of my
oldest dresses at this happy occasion."
Before anyone could respond, Sannie had turned her attention so
completely back to Sandra, it was as if there was no one else in the
room. Looking into her daughter's face she said: "Now tell me again.
About the children."
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Before you buy.
Squirrel
You're starting your plagiarising shit again....
Squirrel