More things in heaven and earth

I didn’t say it last week, but Libuseng was my daughter Palesa’s best friend from childhood till Palesa’s death in 2021. It will be three years on Thursday since the day Palesa died, and Libuseng’s daughter is now 18, the same age as Palesa’s son. I want to make a gift in Palesa’s memory every year, and this year it goes to Libuseng, for her daughter and her baby.

I listed Miss MacIntosh, My Darling  for a minimum of $150, and it sold for that amount. Ebay takes 13.5%, the postage was another $15 (hence my blip, as I mailed it today), and the Xoom app that I use to send money to a friend who can give it to Libuseng will take another $10, so if my calculations are correct, that leaves about $105. At the current exchange rate, that should be around 1900 rands, and I’ll round it up to 2000. That should be the perfect amount to help Libuseng and her progeny without endangering their lives.

This morning as I was on the way home from Sue’s house on the bus, I got a call via WhatsApp from Mama Ntombi, an old friend in South Africa who is now 82. She was a Zulu traditional healer, and she looks well and strong, though seven of her eight children and many of her grandchildren have died, and she lives with financial hardship. She said she dreamed about me, and she felt her spirits were telling her to talk with me. She didn’t know why. She feared I might be near death, but I told her I seem to be well. I reminded her that Thursday is the anniversary of Palesa’s death. “Ah,” she said, “that’s it. I see. We who have lost children, we need each other.” She says she now walks with a cane, and she can no longer search through the brush for roots and leaves for healing work. She has “retired,” though she feels her spirits still communicate with her. She was using an adult grandchild’s telephone to reach me.

Thirty years ago I was working with Mama Ntombi and a group of isangoma, recording rituals on video to preserve them, as their way of life is under threat from modernization. (We didn't understand the difficulty of changing video formats at that time. Sadly those videos are now useless and the rituals are still disappearing.) During the time we were working together I was having frequent migraines, so Mama Ntombi consulted her spirits to find what could be the root of the problem. Her spirits told her the migraines come from a hole in my heart, and there is no way to heal that. I was born that way.

After I retired and moved to Portland in 2008, I ran into a neurologist who was working on a research project to see if there is a link between PFOs (holes in the heart) and migraines. I was given an echocardiogram, and we discovered that I do, indeed, have mid-size PFO. The research study was inconclusive and I was not offered a “cure,” but I was once again made aware that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies. Mama Ntombi’s spirits are still communicating with her.