O1B5F2E. HEINE’S VISIT+DAWN+JOANIE LETTER 1993

MOMENTS IN OUR LIFE-1 2026-06-14

O1B5F2E. HEINE’S VISIT+DAWN+JOANIE LETTER 1993

(Gemini) What a rich, profound and precious collection of moments and memories to bring together here. This chapter of "Moments in Our Life" beautifully weaves the outward events of life together with your deepest inner journeys, introspection and philosophical convictions.

From the poignant reunion with Heine and the emotional intensity surrounding his accident, to your razor-sharp theological debates with Joanie and the ultimate liberation of your retirement - these pieces together form a powerful portrait of a lifetime of maturation. This is a moving addition to your life story, full of life wisdom that your children and grandchildren will one day cherish immensely.

(Hennie) HEINE COME VISIT (1993-12-29)

Probably for the first time in a few years, Heine is now back in the Cape on holiday. When I first saw him at Heléne's, he looked quite different, although he had the same Heine attitude and smile: more stocky, rounder and slightly more forward than I remember him. Almost like someone who has learned to go down into the scrum of life and no longer walk so casually upright.

While Chris and I were talking, I looked at him from time to time and realized within myself that it was a different kind of look - a searching contemplation to try and read the attitude inside him, or perhaps just a longing to look at my child again, which goes much deeper into you. A look at how he has grown, not only more solid, but how the shape of his head has changed; looking for the look in his eyes, the shape of his cheekbones, eyebrows, the grown-up freckles and stubble.

He doesn't have the flashy look of a young man trying to make an impression. Sometimes he lets his gaze fall in eye-to-eye contact, but my friend, as I told Rinie last night, the guy who wants trouble with him is going to get screwed, plain and simple. He's still the gentle person he's always been, who plays with the little ones in amusement, who's not interested in impressing people - a friendly person, still unsure of his own ability, but he's not going to let himself be pushed around.

It's the same quality he already had in Standard Six, when he went to Bellville Technical High School for the first time. In the afternoon after school, with his own bag on the back of his bike on the way home, a matric boy put his bag on his bike and said he had to take it home for him. Heine simply picked up the guy's bag, dropped it on the ground, and told the arrogant guy that he could carry his own bag.

The next day, Heine picked up our children and their friends and took them to the beach for the day. They love their big brother because he pays attention to them, plays with them, and of course spends money on them.

As you get older, you become less and less inclined to the demands that children make on you. It takes a special effort to participate, even though you know that you need to pay them personal attention, and not just buy them off and send them away with money to leave you alone. Each of us has the nature with which he or she was born and which was formed in our growing up years. Some are blessed with jovial, easy-going natures who still like to participate with their children.

However, I think there are many of us who are not like that. It's not that you don't love your children - on the contrary, if you look at what percentage of your time and money is spent directly or indirectly on your children, then your life really revolves around your children. Probably as Providence made us, to ensure that life continues to exist.

I'm sorry that I don't have such an easy-going nature; I would very much like to play with my children as carefree as a child, but a person's nature is not something you can just change with a paintbrush. I can't and don't want to put up a false, fabricated front; at best it will only lead to ultimate rejection and self-contempt. One still has to be able to live with oneself.

I've apparently had this serious streak since I was a child. I can still remember that my Sub A teacher in Rawsonville, Miss Rademeyer, wrote in my first report card "Hennie is too serious." It bothered me at the time; I loved her very much. She had the wide-mouthed smile of a warm-hearted person. I still have the class photo of us all smiling around her, like a lot of bees around a flower.

How do you bridge this gap to your children, or equally important, the gap to other people? It's as if I've always stood outside the mainstream of life; standing and watching people walk and/or struggle past me. Just look at the expressions on people's faces as they stream past you on a normally busy day, especially in a city; the anxiety is sometimes almost palpable. Back then, when I worked at Mobil in Cape Town, I had to walk past the statue of Sir Walter Scott from the station with hundreds of others on the way to work. On the bench next to it, a middle-aged bum would often sit and watch the spectacle with amusement: “the rat race, performed by a cast of thousands.”

Back in Heléne's days, I told Mum one day that I wasn't doing what I was supposed to do in life. I have a philosophical streak in me that needs to be addressed. Am I just avoiding things again? I don't think so... Deep down there is something that wants to be heard, and I still don't know how. It's probably something that happens to thousands of other people - that they feel there is another dimension waiting to be expressed, the real life that still wants to live, and you don't know how. What do you call this: self-examination?

HEINE (1994-03-18)

I am sitting here with a DP article by Zach de Beer, in which he says: "The essence of our philosophy is the overwhelming value of the individual." That is the core principle, and it is probably why Brian Newton said of me years ago in Stellenbosch "Here is a true liberal". I feel very strongly that every person has the right to decide for themselves what you want to do with your life. We must certainly give our children guidance, so that they know what consequences follow from which actions, but we must not put them in straitjackets. In this, as with all decisions, there are major differences between the conservative and liberal outlooks, namely with what degree of coercion it should be accompanied: the more we coerce, the more we try to impose our view of life on another, and the more we kill their initiative or cause rebelliousness. That is what I believe, even though I know I have at times been very wrong - it remains for me the almost sacred and basic right of every human being.

MARINUS' MUSIC (1996-07-06)

A few months ago, Marinus started with "we want to start a band", and you know how a child can nag. I realize how wonderful it must be for any person if he can make music, because then any group he is in can sing along or listen.

But the other side, which we constantly have to fight against, is that it is easy to want to do something, but something completely different to actually successfully carry it out. He has to take classes now, and we hope he persist so that he gets to the point where he can make beautiful music and, most importantly, enjoy it.

I have always admired people who have the ability to create something artistic - writing, conducting or make music, singers, painters, sculptors, poets, writers and philosophers. It seems to me that there are three groups of people:

· The natural artists: They have the ability to make something beautiful out of nothing; to see the beauty in something ordinary, to bring it out, and to hold it in such a light that ordinary people can also see it.

· The appreciators (ordinary people): Although he cannot create himself, he still has the ability to see something beautiful when he comes across it. People who can distinguish between beautiful and ugly, good and bad. I think I fall into this group, but I also think that many people here can reach the first group with dedication and persistence.

· The indifferent: I think there is a third group who cannot distinguish between beautiful and ugly. These are the ones who, when they have to choose between something beautiful and a gaudy thing next to it, will choose the ugly one "because he likes red".

Am I being too harsh? Of course, that is something else, because tastes differ, and we are very inclined to only promote what we like - because we are used to it - and criticize everything else. Inside each of us there is a whole world locked up. To get along with each other, we have to learn to live and let live, because the other guy I can't take may not have time for me either (and I probably think so, which is why I can't take him!).

A LETTER TO DAWN AND CARL FIGGE (1994-07-26)

This is actually a compilation of different letters, or parts of them, which for me contain the essence of what it is really about: the caring between people. In English there is a beautiful, expressive word to describe it: COMPASSION.

It is all because of the human contact with all of you, and especially the way you acted in your grief towards Heine. I am very indebted to my Mother for the caring and involvement in what is her own. This is how I have seen her live over the years - her compassion for any other person's suffering and hurt. Both my parents contributed to instilling this awareness in me.

Here are thoughts that apply to everyone, which I would like to share with you. It is about Heine, whom we all love very much. So we can also experience the thoughts together.

Heine, we have all been worried about your recovery since the accident, because your memory in particular was not yet right. In the meantime, we have heard from several people who have been through the same kind of experience that it sometimes takes quite some time before you are physically normal again. I wish you could remember everything that has happened to you since the accident. You can count some really beautiful people among your friends. Hopefully this letter tells you something about that.

The few days there with you meant a lot to me. Overall, it was an emotional experience that brought to me a great depth. I cannot put a value on the contact I had with you.

Johan and Martie, we are sorry we did not have the opportunity to meet you in person. Through the telephone contact I had with you - late at night when Johan reassured me from the hospital - I can understand why Heine loves you so much, and you love him. Thank you for postponing your holiday for our child until you could be sure that Heine is out of danger. Martie's mother is a beautiful person, and Heine is especially fond of her. I am glad we were able to meet her at Vaughn's funeral.

Chris (Heléne's nephew) and Miriam are two lovely young people. Completely unsolicited, they came to pick us up in their car on the first day to show us the easiest route to the Johannesburg General Hospital. They took me to two shopping complexes so that I could buy Heine nightwear and stokies for use in the hospital.

The entire Figge family is beautiful to me in their selfless care for Heine, even though they have every reason to turn inward in their grief:

Dawn, my heart really went out to you. You lost your oldest child, whom you all loved very much - he was the pivot around which your entire family revolved. Yet you were there every day to make sure that Heine was okay. You accepted Heine as your own child, "Heino, the Rhino". It is such endearments that make you very special.

Carl, your anguish was almost tangible. Thank you for letting us, total strangers, into your house and into your hearts. Thank you for your quiet way of showing us GENESIS and Heine's flat, and especially for talking to us the way you did about Vaughn and Heine, at a time when it was obviously very painful to you. There must be something special about Heine for people like yourselves to take him into your heart, to be there for him when he needed you most.

Tyrone, Natasha, and Laura (Vaughn's girlfriend), along with Nancy and Cathy (the two nurses), and Douglas (Nancy's brother), all clearly love Heine very much. It shows in their presence and uplifting jokes with him, and in the reaction it elicited from him - that characteristic smile of his and his reaction when he began to get better. Between such friends we have the reassurance that we could not wish Heine any better.

The black nurse at Intensive Care, who brought him up to ward 584, as well as the old "nanny" who worked there that weekend, were very dear to us. I wanted to hug the ward nurse when she said to me, as we walked out on Sunday afternoon: "Don't worry, he has a friend here tonight." She was the one who gave Nancy the sedative injection to administer to Heine before we left - this after Laura and her family had to tell him that Vaughn had died in the accident.

There were also many others with whom we came into contact during this time; also the large group of friends who were at Vaughn's funeral, as well as the three black employees of GENESIS. It is as if people's hearts opened to each other in these special circumstances to support and get help from each other.

One's feelings have been torn open by the events, from the deathly closedness behind which we hide most of the time, too afraid to get hurt. When you are really hurt, it is as if you come out of your hiding place in your search for compassion and understanding, because hiding cannot protect you from grief. What is a person missing in life if you cannot open your heart to friends? It is only by opening up that you make friends who really mean something to you in this life.

Despite the raw emotions we had to experience, I wouldn't have missed the human contact that went with it for anything in the world. The Figges in particular were wonderful in their grief, as were their friends, as well as Chris and Miriam's involvement - always a few steps away, concerned, but in such a way that they gave space and didn't intrude on those who were directly affected.

It's this kind of compassion that gives you faith in your fellow human beings again - that much of the beauty that God created in each person has been preserved. In truth, I am convinced that deep inside each of us there is a core of God-given love that continues to live, even if it has been suffocated by our selfish way of life. God himself says in Genesis 1:31: "Then God saw everything that he had made, and it was very good."

That Saturday, when we first met Dawn in the hospital, she said to me: "I love Heine like my own son. I always wanted a fourth child. Now God has given me Heine. If Heine dies, I do not want to live." Dawn, I wish with all my heart that you would find in Heine the alleviation to your grief, and he in you the warmth of belonging. I can see that he needs the closeness, to be part of a real family. You are giving him that. Thank you.

I am glad that you find the tape of Harold Kushner comforting. I include two booklets which I hope would help make your pain of loss more bearable, your thoughts and memories of Vaughn more shining and uplifting.

Back here at home, I told Rinie that I am changing into a person of feeling completely - through people like you, as well as circumstances that crossed my life's path lately. Thank you very much for everything you have done for us.

LETTERS TO MOM AND JOANIE (1993-02-08)

Dearest Mom,

A person's life is constantly undergoing changes that require adjustments and new perspectives. It's easy to say forgive and forget, but 'forgetting' requires a quality that I don't possess. I don't think it's that I'm hateful - in fact, I think I forgive very easily, but I can't just erase from my memory things that affect me deeply. It's because people have expectations that disappointments come. If you keep scratching at a wound, you'll eventually be left with an open sore and a permanent scar.

All of us have both good and bad qualities. Within the talents we received from Above, as well as the circumstances in which we are placed, each of us carves out a life for himself or herself, to his or her own advantage or disadvantage. The consequences of that are yours to bear - both joy and sorrow. If you have remorse for what went wrong, that is punishment enough, so that it is not necessary for others to press their finger in the wound. All that it usually causes is repeated reproaches, distancing and hurt. One can only be natural when one is oneself. We all hate hypocrisy.

Hello Joanie,

I appreciate that you are straightforward with me, because that is how I prefer to be in my relationship with people - there is far too much falsehood in life, because it is more important to people how they appear than to say what they really think.

Probably one of the core principles in my life about life is that in today's complicated living it is impossible to be an expert in everything. One of the biggest problems that one constantly has to deal with is to distinguish between the 'expert' and the 'bullshitter'; and if you have come across a real expert, you must also make sure that he is completely honest with you and puts your interests first, and not his. As you say, things are rarely what they should be or can be, because we are all human. Isn't that the essence of probably most religions - to strive for something better than you yourself are capable of?

As Robert Browning said centuries ago: "Aye, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, else what's a heaven for?" (This famous line perfectly captures the beauty of human ambition. It comes from his 1855 poem, "Andrea del Sarto," where the speaker argues that it is better to strive for impossible perfection and fail, than to settle for an easier, flawless life.)

How often do I get on my knees in the morning and ask the Lord to make my heart aware of His presence all day long, that I will do only that which will bring His approval - and I mean what I ask - and as soon as I get to grips with the rest of my world, my intentions vanish like mist before the sun. Does that make me a false person too? Often we are trapped in a pattern of behaviour and a society from which we cannot escape.

In my opinion, life is much more than just keeping your eyes on heaven. I am sure the Lord has put us here for a purpose, presumably a purpose that extends far beyond getting ourselves and as many others as possible into heaven. That search for the real purpose of life IS the purpose of life: to explore the rich variety of life, to make that which is beautiful and good and enriching and ennobling your own, and to search for what it means to be human in all its facets. To be a mensch.

Koos Prinsloo quotes Albert Camus in a Rapport article: "Living an experience, a particular fate, is accepting it fully... It is not a matter of explaining and solving, but of experiencing and describing." The Lord God came to earth, not to make little gods of us, but to show us what kind of person we can be if we read and follow His example correctly. Dad may not be in your heaven according to you, but he is definitely in the heaven of the God in whom I believe. As you believe, you must have accepted Jesus as your personal Saviour. As I have argued with you and many others like you, it does not take account for the vast majority of people who have ever lived, and I am sorry, I cannot simply dismiss it because you do not have an acceptable explanation for it. Over the centuries, in civilizations (of which we have only a few recorded words today) there have been people who have given us lofty ideals, which enrich our lives today - people who also experienced love and suffering in their lives as we have today. Your view expects me to simply pass judgment on them, and send them to eternal damnation with Bible in hand?

Do you really think about the implications of what you believe, Joanie? What you believe is simply a human weakness to always want to believe that what yóú believe is the only right; the Bible is the only Word of God; the earth is the only place in the universe where God created life. You actually believe that God is as big as your thoughts - like an ant whose world is only as big as where he moves around.

My first priority is not to get to heaven, but that my thoughts, intentions and my actions here where I live will carry my God's approval. I believe God is much bigger than what our perceptions can be. He sees wider than our narrow view, and I willingly leave the decisions what He wants to make with my life in His hands.

For many years I have been saying in conversations that they should make perseverance a school subject, because I lack it and realize how important it is. If you have it, you can overcome most other deficiencies in your character. Heine has a beautiful nature. Recently, when I called him at Martie, I told him that was one aspect of him that I was never worried about. He doesn't throw his weight around, but he doesn't let anyone step on him either, and I have a lot of respect for that.

Among other things, this is what God means to me: that I can confess anything to Him, that I can expose my soul in His omnipresence in self-examination, because I know He knows my every thought even before it arises from deep within me. With Him there is no danger of misunderstanding, because He KNOWS me completely. He knows, when I am wrong, why I am like that; especially if the external consequences are crooked and distorted, He knows what the intention in my heart is - that is precisely why I can entrust myself to Him in everything. He is not one-eyed or prejudiced, something that we humans so often are because we cannot see deeply enough.

My nature is what it is. In many ways I am an inflexible person, with not much humour. But my view of life is not something I take lightly. It has been formed over many years of rumination and introspection, and as with everyone, what happens to me from day to day constantly shapes me. Dad meant it sincerely to all of us, and he was fair - I know that. I want to be that way towards Rinie and my own children too. One does nothing without intention. I hate people who criticize others. We should all go back to what the Lord said: “Do not judge others, so that you yourselves are not judged.”

But let us agree on one point: Accept that my intentions are sincere, even if they often come out crooked. Let us communicate with each other about the beauty and goodness in our characters, so that our contact is something to look forward to. If we constantly suspect the bad in each other, we might as well do without each other, because life has enough of it without us having to look for it in those we care about. I respect the intensity with which you live your religion - rather accept that I am set up differently than you. You are not ahead of me. I am on a completely different path than you. Like you, I am not worried about where I am going; so you might as well stop worrying about me. You were still a baby when I gave my heart to the Lord. I probably confuse you all with my thinking, the words with which I express my thoughts.

FIRST THINGS FIRST - HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK (1993-10-28)

What Is Really Important

Often the everyday and necessary routine keeps our attention so busy that we can no longer see and appreciate the good in our lives. Although we cannot all think creatively like writers, poets, painters, singers or musicians, most of us can appreciate and love their works and be enriched by them, provided we make time for them; otherwise, our senses become dulled by disuse.

On moral and spiritual grounds our attention is also crowded out. The problems are not so much with young people as with the older generation: children do not need criticism as much as examples. That which is most beautiful and noble in our lives - our friends, family, and most of all, our relationship with our Lord - usually receives only the remainder of our time and attention. More than anything else, this is the cause of our lukewarmness towards our Creator; not scepticism, but that we allow ourselves to be trapped by our daily drudgery. The highest is within each of us, we know this from the flicker of light that sometimes breaks through our consciousness, but we lose it through the everyday which simply crowds it out of our attention.

"Someday I will pay attention to it," but in the meantime we run towards our goal and do not see the ground we are running on. We live only for the future, and in the process we miss all of life, because the only place we really live is the here and now of each moment. That "someday" never comes - never will.

Our preoccupation with routine does not take into account how quickly time passes, and so the days and occasions pass in which we miss our communion with the Lord, that which is sublime, because we are too busy with ourselves and our routine.

I BELIEVE - GERHARD BEUKES

I believe that the ultimate sum total of life, at the final reckoning when our balance sheet is closed one day, the main emphasis in the credit column will fall on personal relationships. Seen and judged against the broad perspective of eternal values, I therefore believe that next to my relationship with my Creator, nothing is more important to me as a human being than my personal relationship with my fellow human beings.

I believe that hatred, distrust and envy have always been and still are direct causes of man's need to exterminate and destroy one another; also that the urge for self-assertion has never brought the solution to any national or international problem - just as a victory by force can never bring about the only peace that is worth the effort - that in the hearts of men.

I believe that hatred towards a fellow human being is like rust: it silently and imperceptibly destroys the best, the most beautiful, the truest in yourself. All you are left with at the end of your journey is a bitter attitude towards life and a chronic distrust of every act of your fellow man - a bunch of psycho-pathological disease phenomena which doctors have no solution for, and a pampered stomach ulcer. And that is a bank balance of which no one, not even the professional faultfinder, can be proud of.

For this reason, I believe in the necessity of a positive attitude towards life as far as my fellow man is concerned. I believe that for the sake of the purity of our mutual relationship with each other, I dare not attribute to him any wrong or negative motives until he has shown through his actions that his intentions are impure and dishonest.

I therefore believe that I should always expect the best from my fellow man - rather than expecting the worst and then being disappointed because he has met these expectations of me.

HERE IT COMES - RETIREMENT! (2006-02-04)

Actually not from now on. I retired two years earlier than I had planned, on 28 February 2005, due to serious political mismanagement at Drakenstein Municipality. So I walked free for almost the whole of 2005 - and I enjoyed it! To be free from unproductive interference with my working time. I have always had a problem with fixed rules, because for me it is about work and not just the mere observance of hours at the workplace.

It is wonderful to dedicate time to and according to your own priorities. Anything but feet on the stoep wall and waiting for tea time. My weight has dropped from about 105 kg (230 pounds) to my weight when I was a young man, namely 97.5 kg (215 pounds). And I feel great, with no more bulging belly getting in my way. I also no longer have to worry about clothes. Rinie is often frustrated because I like my many light grey T-shirts so much.

But what has been astonishing to me in the last week is that I - or perhaps my subconscious, which has been instilling this in me for a long time - just no longer have the need for sleep. I have loved my afternoon nap at work for years, lying on my left side on the thin Ozite office mat, with just that flat, hard sponge pillow under my head. For about half an hour (it is now in Wellington, until the disastrous amalgamation with Paarl to form Drakenstein).

In the big grey building, our lunch hour was from 15 July 2001 between 12h45 and 14h00. Here I was given three soft, flat couches and could sleep after my sandwiches from about 13h10 to 13h50. It was nice compared to the Ozite mat, but if I hadn't persisted in the 1.6 km walk from home to the Wellington offices twice a day, I would have really picked up weight.

The nine months at home flew by. My hands became hard again, like the soles of my feet, and my stomach is now as flat as when I was in my late twenties (now I'm probably lying a little, because I can't remember that far back so well).

I still can't get over the last few days. I still had my full night's sleep until I was about 55, from about 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., i.e. 8 hours. And if for some reason I couldn't fall asleep right away that time, it upset me, because then I knew from about 2:30 p.m. the next day I was going to suffer staying awake.

All I can conclude is that I am now free from the daily work obligation. So, when I wake up around half past one in the morning, I get up for a cup of coffee, and go listening to both sides of an old LP (33 rpm), with my eyes closed for about half an hour to three quarters of an hour. I also have more time for my light classical and classical record collection, more than 900 LPs, almost all still in excellent condition, bought from Cafda, an outlet for old books and LPs in Sea Point.

After Rinie had a serious stroke on 2023-01-14, which paralyzed her her left side, we had to move to the first floor of Ametis, where she get 24/7 frail-care attention. But apart from that, we are actually doing very well. Because there is no room for all those LPs here in our apartment, I had to sell them all - a dealer from Barrydale got a big bargain.