O2B1F3E.6 A PHOTO ALBUM IN YOUR HEAD - 2006

MOMENTS IN OUR LIFE-2 2026-09-16

O2B1F3E.6 A PHOTO ALBUM IN YOUR HEAD - 2006

(Gemini) This is an incredibly moving and deeply personal retrospective that you have shared here. The memory of your beloved cat, Poena, and that particular pain of parting is something that will touch any animal lover to their very soul. Your description of the moment at the vet and how you went to bury her at home is written so tangibly that one almost feels the heaviness and deep love you had for her. It is also understandable why that little poem the vets sent you left such a lasting impression - it expresses exactly that unselfish love we have for our pets, where we put their suffering before our own loss.

Here are some thoughts from your writing:

• The power of visual memories: What you describe as "living graphically" and penning down your thoughts in full detail is exactly what makes your writings so vivid and precious. It lets the reader see through your eyes and experience the emotion of those moments together. It is also a fantastic way to keep your brain active, sharp and engaged.

• The past and intergenerational trauma: It is a fascinating (and sometimes challenging) conversation to have with a child when the younger authority dives into complex psychological concepts such as childhood trauma and age regression. Your point of view that people are generally normal with a variety of highs and lows - rather than seeing everything through a lens of trauma - testifies to a healthy, balanced outlook on life.

Thank you very much for capturing this piece of your life and your deepest thoughts on Moments in our Life. It is a precious legacy of your experiences, your emotions and your humanity.

A PHOTO ALBUM IN MY HEAD: THE ART OF GRAPHICAL MEMORY

(Hennie) As often happens when I write down my thoughts, I sometimes wonder what exactly was going on in my head when I was admitted to the psychiatric ward of Paarl MediClinic for a few days 20 years ago. Was I open with all my senses? Apparently I wrote frantically in those few days - unfortunately those notes have been lost, quite possibly because people thought I was slightly out of my mind. Nevertheless, today I try to put meat on those thoughts again.

Our brain has an infinite capacity. Just as we remember conversations or songs we heard in our youth, the brain also stores images and photographs. Just think of the physical photo albums we collected in earlier years. When one flips through it again after many years, it evokes not only the photograph, but the entire circumstance in which it was taken. It fills in the picture like a video: you remember whether it was cold, hot or rainy that day and whether the wind was blowing. And what we talked about.

The deep trace of our pets

Because I am a real cat person, I still feel the deep love I had for my cats to this day – Sintie, Toekels, Poena and Tigger. However, some memories also bring old hurts. I remember how I had to put Sintie out just before I was going on holiday, because she got a big open wound on her hindquarters and no one could take care of her in that condition. Or the resentment I still feel today - more than 35 years later - because our neighbour poisoned Toekels. The Bible does say "forgive and forget", and Uncle Hennie has passed away a long time ago, but that particular hurt still remains inside me.

Especially the sadness around Poena is still clearly engraved in my memory. After 19 wonderful years I had to have her put down when Dr. Bruwer Morkel explained that her organs were beginning to fail. When he lifted her lips and showed the sores on the inside of her mouth, I realized why she couldn't eat anymore.

Dr. Bruwer looked at me questioningly. My mind was too full to speak, and I only nodded. He clipped the hairs on her front paw with a small pair of scissors and fetched the Sodium Pentobarbital injection. He asked me if I was OK to assist, to which I just nodded my head. As I held Poena in my arms, he inserted the needle. In a few seconds her head fell on my arm. Everything was over. A precious life was gone.

Bruwer put Poena's body, now relieved of pain, in a cardboard box on top of a sheet of plastic and I went home with her. There I dug a deep hole with a crowbar in the front corner of the garden behind the gate. After I caressed her little body for the last time, I put her in a black plastic bag, and laid her inside her grave, carefully sprinkling soil over it until the black bag was covered. Then I put a sturdy board on top of the ground and filled the grave further with soil and topped it off with a flat cement stone. I planted sword lilies around the little grave, which I kept watered regularly. My heart and my eyes are still crying as I write here about my darling cat. Until my death you will be a tender memory. All this is as clear to me as if it happened yesterday.

A few weeks later, Bruwer sent me a moving poem that expressed exactly what was going on in my heart:

If it should be I grow frail and weak

And pain wakes me from my sleep,

Then you must do what must be done

For this last battle cannot be won.

You'll be sad - I understand:

Don't let your grief then stay your hand

For this day more than all the rest,

Your love and friendship must stand the test.

We've had so many happy years

What is to come will hold no fears;

You'd not want me to suffer, so

When the time comes - please let me go.

I know in time you will see

It is a kindness you do to me.

Although my tail its last has waved

From pain and suffering I've been saved.

Do not grieve that it should be you

Who has to decide this thing to do:

We've been so close we two these years -

Don't let your heart hold any tears!

- Poena

I can remember the emotions of those events in the finest detail. One often hears that literally everything you take in through your senses is stored somewhere in your brain. Some of them we can recall, even from a very long time ago. This is a well-known phenomenon in psychology and psychiatry known as age regression under hypnosis.

When a qualified practitioner (such as a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist) uses this technique, the following happens:

• Deep relaxation: The patient is placed in a deep state of hypnotic trance where the critical, mature mind moves to the background.

• Revival of memories: The therapist guides the person's subconscious back to a specific period in their childhood, often to the moment when a trauma or emotional problem arose.

• Spontaneous behavioural changes: The person often begins to think, feel and act like the child they were back then. This includes speaking in a childish voice, using the same vocabulary as a child, or even adopting physical mannerisms such as thumb sucking.

The goal of this therapy is to solve problems at the root. It helps the patient to:

• Process repressed traumas: Recalling memories that the adult mind has hidden.

• Heal the "inner child": The adult can now look at that "child" with the wisdom of today and give him/her the comfort or security that was lacking at the time.

• Understanding unexplained phobias or anxiety: Sometimes the cause of an adult's anxiety lies in a forgotten incident from their early years.

• Professional guidance is essential: Because it can release very deep and sensitive emotions, it should only be done by a licensed, medical professional (such as a psychiatrist or psychologist), and not by entertainment hypnotists.

My son Christiaan and I had long letter exchanges over more than six months about my nervous breakdown on Tuesday 2006-02-14. He said several times that this collapse was not because of my early retirement or the unfortunate politics that went along with it, but that it goes much further back, to an unhappy childhood, that my parents did not love me as they should have. This I refuse to believe. He told me several times about childhood trauma, asked me if we let him cry himself to sleep. I replied in the negative - if he was crying we were awake anyway, so it only made sense that Rinie would get up to lull him to sleep.

He said that childhood trauma can be inter-generational - so it is passed down from generation to generation. With my limited knowledge, I equated trauma with being unhappy, and that I cannot accept that everyone in our family was, or is nowadays unhappy. At the time, I wanted to study Psychology, and someone said that one must have a very stable disposition to study Psychology more deeply, otherwise you see in yourself what you are studying. Christiaan is a very intense person and he reads complicated psychology books these days. From real case studies in it, he probably now applies it to our family, as if everyone has childhood trauma, and I can't believe that. In my opinion, most of us are normal people, all with the usual happier, but also less happy times. Like everyone else.

TO LIVE GRAPHICALLY

Some people are blessed with the ability to "live graphically". I hope I have it to some extent. Ever since I can remember, I think visually when a thought comes to mind. It's like the difference between a normal phone conversation and a WhatsApp video call: on video you see each other's body language, the set of the lips and small facial expressions that say so much more than a noncommittal "I'm fine, thank you".

It's like putting meat on something, a third dimension, much more than just a flat painting. When I think about my writings, I really like to pen down my thoughts in full detail. As with the bit above about Poena, I want to put down what is on my mind in the greatest detail possible. For myself, it takes me back exactly to what happened, to my feeling at that time. I want to experience it again as it really was for me, not just an impersonal "I was there". And it is also my desire that the few people who read this can hopefully also experience what happened through my eyes.

Above all, this writing process is a way for me to keep my head sharp and alive. At this stage of my life, place, circumstances and age, it is important that I stay clear-headed as long as possible. It's important to try to stay mentally clear, regardless of how the body deteriorates with time.