Farewell, Motsoalle

In Memoriam: M'e Mpho Nthunya

Born 1930.
Died January 5, 2013.

As we created her autobiography  together between 1992 and 1994, she told me this:

"When I was a little girl, lying in the rondavel waiting for my mother to come home with a handful of mealies [maize kernels], I had the dreams of a child. I dreamed: when I grow up, if God can help me, I'm going to be rich like other people. I see the rich children. They have shoes and clothes, and they have food in their houses that they don't even eat before they sleep.... When I grow up I'll be rich, and I will buy food to sit on the shelf, and dresses for my mother, and a beautiful rosary for her to pray.

"My husband has gone to see God, and my mother, and my babies, and those three grown sons. I know I will die too, when it is time. So there is nothing to be afraid of.

"Now we can all have new dreams. I cannot see the end of them, or how they will be, but I know that our dreams can go beyond shoes and houses and food to sit on the shelf. The new dreams cannot be only for one family, or one clan. Maybe if there is one day enough for the hunger to stop, we can stop being so jealous of one another. If the jealousy is no more, we can begin to have dreams for each other. We can build something new, we can ask God to help us, and we will be busy while we are asking. I think God likes to help people who are already busy, working for their dreams."

This morning I received an email from a professor friend in Lesotho, telling me M'e Mpho died January 5. I last saw her in October, 2010,  when I went back to Lesotho to say farewell. I took her to see the ocean. She loved the ocean.  She first saw it in 1992, when I took her to Durban, when we were beginning our work on her book.

She was ready to die after seeing the ocean in 2010. But death waited and did not come for her till January 5, 2013. There's a great spirit gone from the earth. I loved her. We lived together in South Africa 1995-1999, and she came to America and stayed with me for six months in 2001. We were each other's motsoalle. There is no simple translation of that word. You'll have to read her book to understand it. I hope her release was peaceful and that her spirit will be always at peace now.

This is a bit from the blog I kept on that visit:

As I sat driving beside M'e Mpho on the way home from the ocean, feeling a little weepy, I said to her softly, so the kids wouldn't hear,

"I am happy we went, but I am also sad...." I searched for words. Without looking at me she reached out and patted my leg.

"I know, my dear. I know."

I felt that she did know. Not that it would take extraordinary perception to see both the joy and the sadness in that moment, but I had a feeling that some part of her that was not her history, her circumstances, her story--some part of her knew some part of me that was not my story. Some part of both of us that had nothing at all to do with our stories looked, comprehended, and recognized--acknowledged--the other. Light meeting light becomes light.


I made this picture of the Fremont Bridge reflected in the Willamette River yesterday, but I didn't post it. This morning, it seems right to post it. A set of pictures of M'e Mpho is here.