Endings and Beginnings by Redi Tlhabi

I read Redi Tlhabi's Endings and Beginnings and two things stood out for me which are peripherals really but were important to me. Redi wrote about the Imelda who was raped when she was young, hidden and taken to Lesotho when she started showing in her pregnancy. Imelda then marries a man who is just an exceptional man, Motsie, in how he is described in the book. The first thing I want to speak on is the kind of love that Motsie and his family showed towards Imelda when pretty much most had shunned her. 

"I want there to be a place in the world where people can engage in one another's differences in a way that is redemptive, full of hope and possibility. Not this in order to love you, I must make you something else." Bell Hooks

I think Motsie demonstrated this type of redemptive and transformative love that Bell was speaking about. It was quite refreshing and warming to the heart to see love portrayed in this way in a non-fiction book and it was also encouraging. Motsie and his family did not only invite Imelda into their lives but they welcomed her, their love for her stood firm on its own two feet. It was a love that constantly whispered 'as you are', 'as you are', 'as you are'. Redi's book is really a book of healing, for Redi herself but also for Imelda. It was a story of hope of healing as well, to those right in the middle of hurt, that there is an other side and a side in which there is joy and love. Isis and Osiris type of love.

The second thing that stood out for me, also centred on Motsie's family, is something that I have been thinking and writing a lot about too which is grief. There is power in grief and a power that is so unpredictable but can also be destructive. I am reminded in this book yet again how fatal grief can be. Motsie parents passed away on the same day with the father passing away in the morning and the mother in the evening. The mother passed away from grief and it still shocks me how grief can come in different forms even as the Grim Reaper with scythe and all. In 2010, my friend lost her parents in a similar fashion. Her father passed away from cancer and a few months later her very healthy mother too succumbed. While we know and have been taught to keep our eye on hate and fear, we are not taught this vigilance when it comes to grief. 

On a lighter note, Redi's book is largely based in Soweto which is where I come from. I have to commend her on the way she describes the walk or 'bump' of the local boys. Her description is unmatched and I really laughed out loud when I was reading her description. Anyone reading it could easily visualise the 'bump' and I am just reminded by how full of personality people from Soweto can be.