Dear Rod,

Reading your column in today’s Mercury, I am so sorry that you are not well and that it had to happen when you were away from home.

You help so many people. Now look after yourself.

I wish you a speedy recovery back to good health.

Love

Elaine L

Beth Shalom

Durban

I’ve taken a hit. A foodborne disease picked up somewhere en route from Madagascar to Cape Town completely knocked me out. 

But now, I am in recovery. 

I clearly had no idea of exactly what was hitting me but all the while I felt I was living inside a weird game of Survival and a complex IQ test, all this with beautiful Table Mountain just outside my 12th floor hotel window. 

Getting  myself to the airport, checking in the vehicle, bidding my sister farewell as she set off for Johannesburg; ordering a wheelchair service to negotiate the vastness of the three airports awaiting me, I set off on a challenging journey home.

I did my absolute best not to lose my sense of humor or my sense of hope, often identified and described by others as foolish.

I found it hilarious in the local hospital when the young men and woman were doing all they could to protect my privacy, cover my body, maintain my integrity, honor my humanity.

I was seeking none of that.

I was seeking replenishment of the necessary, sustenance and nutrition and hydration my body was most desiring and demanding.

Something profoundly healthy happened in the middle of the first night when both my sons and their girlfriends arrived from near and afar be in the ward with me to spend most of the night, feeding me through an invisible lifeline of loyalty and love.