When one’s significant other passes on and the other parent is expected to continue showing up, that journey—a new journey—can prove to be much more difficult and draining than ever.

To continue showing up for their offspring while also restoring normality in some way.

And while the bounce-back is sort of expected, sometimes with minimal consideration of the parent’s pain, Kgomotso Moagi and Lerato Tsoeu both express how extremely exhausting and taxing this migration is. From having a partner to share life’s responsibilities with to being alone.

The mothers, both 32-years-old, recently lost their husbands after brief illnesses. Now 13 and 10 months later, respectively, picking up the pieces especially for their children, is paramount with both mothers echoing the same sentiment of an unknown strength that they have witness within their children and that is what keeps them going. 

These are their stories.

Kgomotso Moagi recently moved to Mpumalanga, seeking a fresh start on her life after her husband’s passing left a gaping hole within her. And having two daughters to raise has not made the grieving process any easier as she is constantly placing their needs before hers. As a mother should. 

“Most times, I feel like I am on autopilot. Even when something good happens, like now getting this new job that allows me a fresh start, I’m supposed to be very excited, but I am not. Because a part of my heart is dead. I can’t even sugarcoat it because this part of my life is bad. Yes, I am trying, but I miss yelling at somebody, loving on my husband, and just having my friend around.”

Kgomotso and her late husband, Chris, would have been together for 10 years when he passed away on Christmas Eve 2022. Chris, a news photographer, and Kgomotso, a paramedic, were both at a crime scene when Chris seized the opportunity and asked for her number. It was love at first sight, as he paid lobola that very December of 2014. 

Chris passed away shortly after discovering his fast-spreading cancer, which left zero to no room for medical help. 

Kgomotso shares that watching her husband’s life deteriorate right before her eyes was a shock to the system that she was never ready for. With two children she knows she needs to be strong, but the pressure sometimes gets to her.

“Life is not easy. Balancing grief, life, and raising my daughter’s has been impossible because I don’t have a balance within myself. I can’t seem to find my footing on how to run everything alone because the one person with whom I shared these responsibilities with is no more. So finding the time to even do homework after a long day’s shift is one task I prioritize as a way to bond and keep track of my eldest daughter’s school progress. Which means waiting for the little one to either go to sleep and then we do the homeworks very late that night or very early in the morning.

“And quite honestly, that’s unfair on my baby girl, but being alone means working around inconveniences to make life work,” she adds. 

The strain of grief has evidently shifted gears for her, but she adds that her firstborn daughter has oddly been her pillar of strength, although she too is trying to make sense of this new normal. 

“I still don’t understand how my daughter is navigating everything, although I do keep tabs on her. There was this one time when I was listening to Maroon 5, which was my husband’s favorite band. The youngest one was asleep, and my firstborn was playing outside. I started weeping on the floor. My daughter was heading to the bathroom when she realised what was happening. She asked me what was wrong and since I have a very open communication with her – I told her about how much I missed her father. These were her words to me: ‘I miss him too, but I know you’ll be alright. Stop crying.’ Very firmly, then she gave me a kiss and went on with her playing. 

“Till this day, I am in awe of how she has a way of motivating my healing. She sometimes joins me, which is very much expected, and then there are those many times when she reminds me of a life that I need to live,” she said.

For Lerato Tsoeu, her husband’s passing crept up on her when she least expected it, especially since they resided in two different provinces, the Free State and Gauteng.

Her husband spent two weeks in the hospital, and to this day, no answer have been given to her as to what might caused his death.

“My son looks more and more like my husband with each passing day. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing, but what I do know is that living each passing day is extremely hard,” she said.

 Tseou’s husband was an extremely present father who made sure that he was available for important school functions on the first day and was even their alarm in the morning.

The couple have been married for 7 years, and because of the distance, they have planned to achieve a lot of their dreams, like traveling. But a month before they could realize their dreams, her husband passed away.

“Grieving is such a complicated thing, especially when you have a child to take care of. I sometimes find myself having to schedule my tears because I don’t want to trouble my son. He sees it, though; kids are like that—they know their parents. But we try to shield them a lot,” adding that the two were extremely close.

“I always second-guess myself about whether I am doing a good job with my son because I suddenly feel like half a person. But I also think my son has found his own way of grieving. I’ll sometimes walk in on him talking to his ‘father’, and I allow him that. Whatever it takes for him to journey through this pain, I am there to support him,” she said.

Lerato shares that she is not in the best of spaces, but reality calls on her to show up as a parent.

Read here on how to allow children to grieve.

 

“Even with this grief that is lingering at every corner of my life, I try to support my son as much as I can. But the truth is, when you are in such a situation, everything feels and seems so dark,” she said, adding that her biggest fear is making her son feel alone. So she sometimes overcompensates.

 “This place of grief is a really dark place to be in. I don’t know how I’ll overcome it. I don’t know about other parents facing this painful challenge, but no amount of therapy, words and encouragement seems to be helping me. Right now, all I want is to be a better person for my son. He deserves to feel all the love, even in the absence of his father,” she adds.

Grieving is a difficult part of our lives, especially when there are certain expectations on our shoulders.