Her mother passed away 19 years ago on this day. Paying tribute to her, Pearl Thusi penned down a heartfelt letter remembering her. "I always wonder, what would you think of me. What would your relationship with your grandkids be. What would you look like now. Will I ever see you again? Are you ok?" Pearl says she thinks often of her late mom. "When my heart is broken, I still think of you first. I've somehow convinced myself you'd know how to mend it," she says. "When I feel like the entire world is against me, I wish I could call the one person I know who loves me unconditionally. You. When I don't know where to turn or what to do- I still think of you. Maybe one day I can turn the worst day of my life into something meaningful. Until then - on this day I will hide away and work through these emotions of why you had to leave. And why I must continue going without you. It will never make sense. But I will never stop loving and missing you. I hope you're ok, wherever you are," she concluded the note.
LOSING HER MOM
Last year, Pearl opened up about how her father a taxi owner infected her mother, a nurse, with HIV. At first, she was reluctant to speak about the matter but felt it was important to bring awareness around the stigma of HIV/AIDS. "When my mother died, one of her best friends had come to the house. She had hidden money. I ended up using that money to buy her an outfit for when she was in the casket, and I remember they walked into the living room. It crossed my mind that she was dead, but you never imagine that your mother can die. I just didn't imagine that. I just remember uSis Lindiwe saying usesishiyile (she has left us), and you think of all the possible things that could mean at that moment. Me and my sisters just lost it and everyone telling us not to cry." Pearl says her mother had been sick for a few months before she died. "I got really close to her in those few weeks. I was in grade 10. I was still Miss SA Teen's first princess, and I was doing my homework until really late and we'd have conversations. I would ask her why she dated Dad," she says. "My dad was a taxi owner and taxi driver at the time. She couldn't explain it."
HER DAD'S PASSING
Pearl says she only got to ask her mom a bunch of questions while she was ill. "Then she was gone.," she says. "It wasn't until much later that I found out that my mom had contracted something from my father. My mother was a professional nurse and even trained other nurses at the time," she adds. "She was HIV positive, and my dad was always getting sick. At the time, the stigma attached to HIV was really wild." Pearl says she has never felt the need to speak about the matter to protect her parents' legacy. "I would have never brought this up if my dad was still alive. As much as it's important to talk about HIV and the stigma and us having progressed, I wouldn't want people to look at my parents and just think of that. So yet at the same time, it's important to hail those people as heroes." Pearl says her dad survived for a long time. "My mom had gallstones. For her to have died from that was very suspicious but I guess her being HIV positive didn't really help," she says. "My dad had meningitis, maybe three times and he survived, which is insane on its own," Pearl recalls how he first fell ill. "I remember the first time he got it, we were at home and I didn't know what was wrong with my dad because they didn't tell us anything. I found out when my daughter was two or three years old and my mother would have passed on about eight years, I think. So, for me to find out in that way, my dad was still alive. I was so angry," she says. "I was a mother myself by then. It was a secret."
SPEAKING OUT
Pearl adds that she had taken care of someone who was HIV positive but did not know. "These are my parents; it's part of my story and they are not here anymore. And I guess if anything, I want the experience of being raised by parents who are HIV-positive to be so important. The time was a sensitive time. I felt the relief from my father when he found out that I already knew," she says. "So, it's been an interesting journey with HIV and World AIDS Day. I wouldn't understand why my mother every year would light a red candle and she'd be invested in it, and I thought it was because she lost a lot of patients." Pearl advised parents to open lines of communication with their children and families. "Times have changed. It's a lot easier for children to deal with the idea and the consequences of you being HIV positive and also, we need to make the conversation flow more easily with respect and understanding. There needs to be conversation and information being shared."
