KRAZI KIDS - PART I - SHIRLEY

"I am going to be a nurse, like aunty Brenda" - this from my 10 year old first born.

Shirley was particularly close to her aunty Brenda, who sadly passed away earlier this year due to ovarian cancer. She had never had a check up in her life, despite bearing 4 sons.

Some early history first would be good, here it is and I do remember it WELL.

Every year, from the childrens infancy, we would make the long journey from Salisbury to my in laws Angora goat farm not far from East London. First. We would travel by, wait for it, steam train most of the way, through the Rhodesian countryside, through the Karoo as far as Alice Springs in the Cape, where we would unload 3 tots, all our bedding and a camp cot in order to catch the connecting train which would take us to East London. We spent 3 nights and 2 days on the train. The youngest "kid" was 9 months old and spend most of the journey in her camp cot which was assembled and put onto the top bunk. Quite safe and well wedged in. When she was not in the cot she was crawling around the floor. You know how clean trains are? So you get some kind of picture of what they looked like most of the time. It was pointless changing clothes so I would give them a splash in the tiny compartment sink, put clean under clothes on and over this the sooty overall would go.

For many years after that my sister in law laughed at the memory of picking us up and the only white part of them were there eyes!

Years went by and Shirley dearly wanted to be like her aunt, whose first vocation in life had been nursing before she married a farmer.

So from standard 7 upward all her school reports were sent to Greys Training Hospital, the best training hospital in Natal. She was accepted in her matric year. For the Christmas of her matric year we even bought her a fob watch used by nurses. That is how close she realised her dream. She never got there though, and just maybe I know why.

What she wanted to do and who she was meant to be were two different things entirely.

One day I went through my candid camera photos and found THE ABOVE PICTURE.

Now does this look like an aspiring nurse to you? nooooooo, that is a very eeuuww expression I see on her face. She is helping her Aunt stitich the leg of a R3 000 ram. Notice she cannot even look at it!

Today? Shirley is in a happy marriage and home schools her two daughters. Who woulda thought?

I learned two things from this story, firstly, it may take many years before we fall into the roll God planned for our lives. It does not mean that we cannot dream and plan, for that is a good thing, we must be prepared in our hearts and minds that when we are at the threshold of our dreams and goals, we may discover that it was for the wrong reasons we wanted what we wanted in the first place.

Secondly, Never neglect your body, for it is the temple of God and is given to us to take care of. Have your checkups when you should, many lives are saved by doing this and too many lose their lives too soon as Shirley's aunt did by thinking that nothing would happen to her.

Happy dreaming!