2015 | We Extended Our Holiday at the Seaside to a Stay in Paradise

An extended holiday at the seaside. We went to the KwaZulu-Natal Lower South Coast for a family holiday, then gave up our life on the Highveld, extended our stay at the seaside, and remained in Paradise for what we reckoned would be at least a year.

Corné suggested that we all go on a family holiday together, to rest and reflect on our future. Who suggested the Lower South Coast of KwaZulu-Natal? I cannot even remember, but a few weeks later Daniel, Karen, Corné and I flew to Margate and took temporary residence in a three-bedroom apartment.

It was my first visit to the Lower South Coast. I had grown up in the far Northern Cape, and until then we had moved all over the country for work purposes, but had never lived in KwaZulu-Natal. It was the winter of 2014 when we went there on holiday.

At that time the Highveld was icy cold and bitterly unpleasant—frost on the lawns and wind that cut right through your ribs. I had never really gone through menopause and had never experienced the hot flushes described by most women. I was fifty years old when I received chemotherapy following a mastectomy, and a year later I underwent a radical hysterectomy. I was simply dragged violently through and beyond menopause. And the cold was the only thing that remained in my body.

I had never really been fond of winter, but after all these medical interventions, my body could no longer regulate its own temperature. I was constantly cold, even with underfloor heating and electric heaters installed throughout the house. This holiday away from the freezing Highveld was the best medicine imaginable.

On the very first day we arrived on the South Coast, I had to go out and buy swimwear, shorts, T-shirts and sandals. I could hardly believe that I could swim in the sea and tidal pools in winter. We spent hours outside in the warm sunshine, ate ice cream on the beach and sat outside on the balcony late into the evenings.

Early each morning, we walked from beach to beach, exploring the area. It was the most beautiful part of South Africa I had ever seen. Yes, I know that is actually a treacherous thought, because the equally beautiful former Cape Province had been our home for many years.

I think the idea of moving to the South Coast was already taking shape then. I could never be happy in another part of the country again. I also realised that I could never return to my old way of life. The mere thought of getting up early in the cold and driving to work past the golf course, with the lawns covered in brilliant white frost, made me feel ill.

I also knew perfectly well that I would not be able to maintain our house in Meyerton, support the whole family and pay for my mother’s care home on the pension I would eventually receive if I stopped working. The care home was costing me several thousand rand a month. The house was paid off, but the municipal utilities bill was another few thousand rand every month.

The cost of maintaining the house had by then become phenomenal, because Daniel continued gardening and eventually supplied the whole neighbourhood with fruit and vegetables. The house and garden had become unaffordable. It was, however, an impossible task to make him understand that our cost of living was simply too high. Daniel had last earned a salary at the end of the previous century and simply had no idea anymore how expensive everything had become.

Add to that the crippling cost of medical care and fuel that I had to provide each month to care for both Daniel and my mother, while I was still receiving oncology treatment myself. My contribution to my medical aid, the one “luxury” I was not prepared to give up, would swallow almost half of my future monthly pension.

Daniel was being treated for skin cancer and a deterioration of his vertebrae at the then Johannesburg General Hospital in Parktown, 55 kilometres from our home; my oncologist’s rooms were in Florida, Roodepoort, 70 kilometres away. Fuel was already far from cheap.

We began making plans. Karen was in the process of getting her small freelance business off the ground. She had learned to design websites, and the very same clients she worked for in those days are still on her portfolio today.

I could put my knowledge of Microsoft’s programmes to use, preparing documents and doing proofreading. Google had been my “go-to” platform for gathering information from the very beginning, and more recently I had declared AI my very best friend. We were already using this source of knowledge to generate income, and we still do. Working for another organisation would be just a memory left behind forever.

The freelance work would never make us rich, but it would supplement Daniel’s and my combined pension and investments. We would have to tighten our belts, but the decision had actually already been made. “Mom, we can rather be poor and happy at the sea than make lots of money and be unhappy here where we live,” was Karen’s opinion.

I had quite a few hurdles to clear before I could make this dream a reality. First, I had to make other arrangements for my mother. I approached my brother and explained that I needed him and his wife to take over her care because I could no longer afford it. Because of my lower income and my declining physical condition, I had to make another plan.

My resourceful sister-in-law found a care home very close to their house on the East Rand that cared for elderly people at a nominal cost. General medical care was included, and the fact that my mother had only a state pension at her disposal was taken into consideration. The care was of excellent quality, and we could genuinely afford the additional costs, such as nappies for frail elderly residents.

As far as Daniel’s and my medical care was concerned, we had to make sure that the state hospital would be closer to our intended new home and that Daniel’s records could be transferred. For myself, I quickly located the private hospitals and doctors in private practice who could provide me with the care I needed.

I took on the task of telling my mother about our departure and her stay in another care home. I wanted to make sure that she would be comfortable in the new home and then gradually get her accustomed to the fact that my brother and sister-in-law would now be her primary caregivers.

My mother spent her last birthday in the old care home in October 2014. She was already 96 years old.

We began looking for an auctioneer to sell most of our furniture and equipment on our behalf, as well as an estate agent to help us put the house on the market. Daniel dug in his heels, especially when we started sorting through the tools in the overcrowded garage, but we were determined to scale down our possessions. We wanted to move with as little as possible.

To our surprise, the house sold quickly, and Karen and I had to start looking for accommodation urgently. To our delight, we found the ideal apartment in a small coastal town, in a complex where we would be the only permanent residents because the surrounding apartments were rented out as holiday accommodation. This particular owner, however, wanted permanent tenants for his apartment. Our idea was to live there and take a year-long holiday because we desperately needed the rest. After that, we would decide what to do with our future.

In the meantime, we continued visiting my mother at the new care home on weekends. She was very happy with her new roommate. We were assured that she ate at the table without any resistance, had no problems with the diet and got along well with the other residents and staff. She did ask why she had been moved to the new place, and I explained that I had to leave, but that I would come and visit. In the meantime, she could enjoy the company of her beloved son and his wife.

On 1 January 2015, early in the morning, we packed two cars and set off for the South Coast, with a cat, a dog and a birdcage as extra luggage in my little Panda, to wait for the furniture truck. Corné loaded the rest of the loose luggage and Daniel into his car.

We arrived in the little coastal town called Elysium in time to see the beautiful view of the beach and the Indian Ocean in daylight from the balcony of our apartment.

In Homer’s Odyssey, Elysium was the paradise reserved for the blessed.

Yes, we decided, this truly is Paradise.

Featured image: AI-stylised photo of the view from our balcony over the lush vegetation, lagoon, sandy berm and the waves of the Indian Ocean. I was walking down to the road towards the beach for our daily outing.