The story line on Thembi’s cancer and Sbu supporting her (or at least trying) might appear unreal or copied from this other movie (im not saying which). It might appear like something the writers came up with just so they would support CANSA (Cancer Association of SA)’s initiative ya Cancer Awareness month, and some people might shoot it down as ‘out-of-the-blue’ or ‘hayikengoku’ or ‘too much’ or ‘was that necessary’. For some of us it connects us with our pain and lets us relive our most critical moments with our loved ones who were swallowed by this Cancer.
I never want to watch Rhythm City when they start relating to these crucial society issues and putting these events into their storyline. I remember the Xenophobia thing was just too real. I still have a picture of that foreigner guy encrypted in my mind – swimming in petrol, with a burning matchstick held two centimeters from his nose. Yhu! that was just too traumatic.
So yha, I thought I wasn’t going to let myself write about this and least of all put it in a blog like this one. I mean, I haven’t even had the courage to put it in my journal and truth is though I cry about it almost all the time – sometimes I stop and think, why am I crying exactly?
- Am I crying because God let it happen?
- Or am I crying because I didn’t expect it?
- Am I crying because nothing prepared us?
- Or am I actually crying because it could happen to me too?
The Bible says God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. And I have found that to be just too true.
October is Cancer Awareness month, right? And if it was last year or any other year before that, I probably wouldn’t have taken all these messages to heart. I wouldn’t be wearing this pink ribbon that I have had on for the past few weeks. But that is because something has changed. God made a move that I think changed my life forever.
So ever since I read the Rhythm City Teasers a few weeks ago and caught on the story of Thembi’s cancer storyline I have been watching this soapie rather religiously. I am interested in seeing how the whole thing will be played out.
The fear in her eyes when each day that passes she can expect it to be her last. When each day she learns just how close she is to breathing her last.
Everything else – the past (including the abortion), the relationships, work, projects – all these appear like just a shadow when she comes down to the fact that there is a beast inside of her – eating her up – and nothing can be done really to stop it. It is eating the cells that make up her body and when the body has been chowed, the beast will cause her spirit to give in.
And the doctors! When they give you that three months expectancy, you are forced to count each day, each hour, each second, even unconsciously, you do. You start to appreciate every gesture. Arguments, worries and agitations start to feel like a waste.
time wasted with Lucas could've been spent
building a life with Sbu When I cried so bitterly after watching Thembi and Sbu last night I knew it was time for me to put these things down. To say something. Talk about this. You see, this whole examine your breasts and testicles for lumps story is quite serious. Some celebrities might be using the whole ‘I found a lump on my breast’ thing for publicity, nhe.. but Cancer is real, and it is not called “the C word” or “the big C” for nothing. Back then they were scared of it – like seriously scared, so scared they couldn’t say its name. Because even to this day its causes are speculated and its symptoms are hardly ever identified.
Now, exactly 10 weeks ago I lost a very good friend and sister to Cancer and I tell you it was not fun. The pain. Watching her just finish and lastly depart, just like that, at a tender age of 32. Watching her husband being strong for her, for himself and for their child – im telling you that experience made me read that “smoking causes cancer” label on a Dunhill box from a totally different light. ( my friend didn’t die of lung cancer – but cancer is still cancer, right? It kills, and it kills silently and it’s freaking painful). Within a month after diagnosis she was gone.
They call it with fancy names – leukemia a result of hemoglobin deficiency? WTH? The whole time you have been telling me to eat beetroot and giving me iron supplements. Meanwhile you say you have Phd’s in medicinal what what? How come exactly… that after so many years, so much research? So many scientist claims that science can compete with God… how come cancer is still very rarely detected early and how come there is so little that can be done to kill it?
Futhi with treatment that cost up to R30 000 per session; which, by the way, most medical aids don’t cover.
At least when you are dying of AIDS, and you know you got it sexually… you can run around and apologise to people you have wronged, count your sexual partners and find at least one to put the blame on – you become angry at the person for infecting you – you become angry at yourself for putting yourself at risk. You can recall a day that you most probably got it. And you think back on that day qho! Thinking perhaps if you had done things differently… you wouldn’t be dying. You put the blame somewhere – and that in its strange way helps you deal with it, somehow. You can even believe in these garlic things and make sure you eat tons and tons of the thing to at least do your best to prolong your days.
a cancer cell With cancer they just tell you this growth is there… in your stomach or on your liver or on your brain, your colon… or wherever it chooses to be – you can’t tell how it settles there – why it’s you that had to have it and mostly how come you have never ever had any symptoms that said you have it. Only in the very last days, even the most madala doctor can only then find the x that marks the spot.
It’s so frightening and this one must definitely be one of those things that the Bible says can only be moved by fast and prayer. Certainly this is one bridge that ‘positive thinking’ alone can’t help you go over.
In any case.. back to Sbu. Poor Sbu. He has just got the love of his life back.
Just when he was still enjoying her and loving her voice when she says “I love you! (breathes) Sbu! I want to be (breathes) with you! (breathes) Sbu…
Just when poor Sbuda is still casually seeing the future and their life together ahead, then booom! She’s got three months to live, the most. How is he supposed to do this? Life just simply doesn’t make sense anymore.
shem, poor SbuAnd I will say this. Unless you have God as a firm foundation of your life and a pillar of your strength I don’t see how you can deal with what Sbu is faced with. I think he is going to hit the bottle and run his company down.
I am only again trying to make sense of how a man in Sbu’s position is supposed to go on. I mean he loves her. Though they have loved each other so much for so long, they have never really lived together together for any long.
He has to encourage Thembi to believe that something can be done and it is not as bleak as it appears, but the truth is that… he is freaking terrified.
And mina after I have seen and watched my friend’s husband go through it, I think I have unconsciously come to a very dangerous decision that I’d rather not be with my soulmate at all than to watch him go through something that hectic.
On the other hand, the whole story just makes you look at your own life and pushes you to make sure you live each day as if it were your last. Such things make you realize that you can have everything that you think you need – you can work hard and dream big like Donald Trump says we should. You can achieve everything and save as much money as Warren Buffet says we need to... but at the end of the day, you are not really in control of your life. Each day needs to be meaningful and every second has to make sense.
You realize just how your life isn’t exactly yours. Just how you don’t have the final say on how long it will be and how it will end. And you see how Vuyo Mokoena was inspired to sing “Avulek’aMazulu” just when the cancer was busy growing in his brain and notlong before his days were also over.
He said:
Lungis’ iindlela zakho
Lungis’ ukuhamba kwakho
And that’s the message that I close this article on.
Thembi le Sbu had a perfect love – a real he’s-my-prince fairytale minus the frog. All of a sudden something is thrown at them that they have completely no control over. It’s not another man or another woman that they can run away from and Thembi is not pregnant with Lucas’ baby that they can abort. They are not bankrupt that they can cut down on their spending. It’s CANCER!
Nna I will be glued to my TV screen for the next few weeks and probably shedding a tear after each episode.
And I will definitely want to send a good 'bigups' to the writers once the story is done. I believe so much in these two youngsters and I believe that they will do a sterling job.
Now to you, mabloggers…
Have you gone to check your boobs and balls this month?
Have you ever cared for a cancer patient?
Have you lost anyone close because of cancer? Please share the experience.
If you watch Rhythm City, are you interested in following this story and do you think Sbu and Thembi will play it right?