Your presence elicits a warmth and softness in me

Dearest MaRiky: A Mother’s Journey through Grief, Trauma and Healing by Louisa Zondo is published by Jacana Media. Below are letters to her son, Rikhado Makhado (Riky Rick), from the chapter titled, On the Mountain.

23 March 2022

Dearest MaRiky,

It’s the early hours of the morning – 1.03am Nepali time, to be exact. It’s been one month now, since 23 February 2022. The day on which your spirit and body separated.

I am lying on my back in a warm bed in the Buddha Lodge, Phakding, Nepal. I’m in Nepal, because I am on my way walking to Mount Everest Base Camp, MaRiky. I’m awake at this hour because I’m reflecting on life, death and the meaning of everything.

Since your death last month, I’ve been starkly aware of the need in me to make sense of where I am and how I am called to be. I decided to proceed with this trek to Mount Everest Base Camp. Not only because I knew you would want me to, but also because I imagined it would present the perfect opportunity, over fourteen days, for me to wrestle with the questions...

What is the moment?

How does this moment call me to be?

I am unskilled at staying with an enquiry – any enquiry – and going deep into it. You know this, because during your thirty-four years of life on this side, you watched me ‘busybody’ myself through many crises. In fact, you were the first person to really teach me to sit with challenges and ‘encounter them’ without rushing to offer what I perceived to be solutions, without needing to wipe away the challenge.

For this reason, my Mount Everest Base Camp walk will be embodied in a long conversation with you. I imagine that the conversation will not be neat and orderly. Little is clear to me. The conversation might just present itself as and when it emerges. Little is clear to me, but I will proceed. I will proceed, and I will open myself up to this moment and how it calls me to be…

24 March 2022

Dear MaRiky,

The experience of yesterday was beautiful. It was Day 2 of our Mount Everest Base Camp trek. Aunt Xoli and I walked with our trekking team after connecting with them on Monday evening, 22 March.

We left Phakding at about 9am and headed for Namche Bazaar.

It was a nine-hour trek filled with laughter, camaraderie, silence and physical anguish of the body. We ascended from 2 600m to 3 440m. I feel enormous gratitude that all of us in the team ended the day in high spirits and eager to treat our exhausted bodies to some muchdeserved rest.

As I took in the unspeakable wonders of the mountain, the sense of you being part of it all was so real, MaRiky… I laughed out loud and shouted your name. I still hold this huge awareness of your presence. It brings up an inexplicable warmth and softness in me.

Being like this evokes the unforgettable feeling when gazing at a feeding baby in utter love. When baby returns the gaze with a coo, as milk trickles down the side of their mouth… that primal feeding instinct. Such moments were, for me, always whispers of God’s presence… Love’s presence.

As I embraced your presence and connected with you, the middle stanza of Rumi’s thirteenth century poem ‘A Great Wagon’ came to me. That wisdom captured the essence of it all. Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make any sense.

Even as I stayed in the beauty, joy and peace of being connected with you, I saw the drastic erosion of this beautiful, majestic Himalayan mountain range. I saw the desperation of the custodians of the land as they grapple with the tyrannical demands of the tourism industry. They are being forced to cut down trees in order to upgrade their infrastructure to meet the insatiable needs of so called ‘paying tourists’.

I saw – with great anger – the effects of corruption, which has caused many folk operating in the tourism industry to lose hope of ever recovering from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. I started wondering how you hold awareness of these and a plethora of other intersecting challenges.

Maybe one of the things you would do is to deepen understanding of how communities organise and seek to define and shape the meaningfulness of life for themselves. Maybe I must explore this further…

24 March 2022

Dear MaRiky,

Today is Day 5 of the team’s trek, and Day 4 for Aunty Xoli and me. We had an ‘active’ rest day, which saw us walk slowly for three and a half hours to the Everest Viewing Hotel 3 880m above sea level.

From the restaurant deck, we were able to get a glimpse of the summit of Mount Everest. This was a brief window of opportunity, as the mountaintop soon became completely cloaked in clouds. How exhilarating!

We encountered incredibly scenic landscapes, yaks silently grazing, throughout the mountainous terrain. My heart was filled with joy. I recalled your enormous warmth. Reels of videos capturing your playful soul came to mind, as I absorbed the serenity of the moment.

MaRiky, the breathtaking beauty of this mountain is laced with stark contrasts and contradictions of deep-rooted hardship, toil and exploitation. Experiencing these reminds me of how your life continuously taught me to hold in awe both the great joys of life and the devastating harms of our existence.

It brought into focus a thought shared by James Finley in a lecture I heard many years ago on Transforming Trauma. It goes something like:

‘You know that you love someone when you have

had a glimpse of something so beautiful in them, that it can never die.’

It’s blissful to realise that your life gave real meaning to this wisdom. I am grateful to this Mount Everest Base Camp trek for presenting me with this insight. You remain immense beauty, MaRiky. I joyfully confirm that, to me, you can never die. I love you to infinity, MaRiky. Mama

25 March 2022

Dear MaRiky,

Our trek has brought us to Lobuche. This is Day 5 of our trek. On today’s walk, we gained some elevation and reached one of the oldest monasteries in Nepal, at 3700m, then descended to 3400m to sleep low at the Paradise Lounge and Restaurant in Lobuche. Internet connectivity is rather weak at this point, and I may not be able to transmit this message.

We will certainly have no connectivity over the next two days in Tengboche, so the posting of my musings on those days will be delayed until connectivity is established.

Today’s seven-hour trek was filled with richness. We got the opportunity, once again, to observe Mount Everest.

As we continued to trek upwards, for two and a half hours on a truly steep trail, it occurred to me that while Mount Everest is the highest of all peaks in the world, from where we were, it appeared lower than the other peaks in the Himalayan range. This is a matter of perspective and it led me to consider how I have so often acted on what I perceive with my physical senses – as if it was the only and absolute truth.

I thought how easily I go about life blinded to perspective. As is characteristic of the mind, this led to thinking on numerous areas, including mental health.

Your death, MaRiky, was met with deep shock, pain and sadness internationally. It ignited wide discussion about depression and mental illness in general. As I thought about the range of traumas that affect our mental health, I found myself reviewing ways in which society is experiencing collective traumas.

Thoughts about the violence of misogyny, racism, corruption, greed, poverty, inequality and other injustices brought darkness to my spirit. I found myself grappling with how we hold the devastating effects of our collective and personal traumas.

As society, how do we intentionally attend to and strengthen mental health? How do we become a society that provides all – young people in particular – with access to means of transcending and transforming trauma?

MaRiky, you were vocal about the reality of depression and mental health in the creative industry. You never missed the opportunity to express your views on the duty each of us has to care for others. How do we build on this, and centre caring and mental health in the fabric of society?

The memoir is available online and in all good bookstores. The recommended retail price is R240.