Reeva: A Mother's Story (4 page)

At 9.45 a.m. on Monday 20 May 2013, we hold the Ashes Ceremony on Summerstrand Beach, officiated by Anglican minister Reverend Eddie Daniels. It is time to let her go.
Let her go –
that is a difficult thought to come to terms with during the half hour or so it takes to drive the twenty-five kilometres from our new house to the beach that Reeva loved. We have so many photos of her on the sand. This spot is where she posed for a fashion shoot for her first modelling pictures – kicking her heels aged fifteen in a beautiful white wedding dress, which remains Barry’s most treasured image of her. It’s a place where we’re be able to visit her on her birthday and whenever we feel the need, now she’s part of the sea. It is a beautiful, serene occasion. We have prayed for a fine day, and it is lovely, right from daybreak. The sea is also gentle and soothing. Accompanying Barry and I are Reeva’s half-siblings from our previous marriages, my daughter Simone who is eighteen years her senior, and Barry’s son Adam who is thirty-six; Barry’s brother Michael, his wife Lyn and their daughter Kim; our great friend Jenny Strydom; Warren Lahoud, Reeva’s former long-term boyfriend from Johannesburg, a wonderful, wonderful man; and several other close family members all join us to take leave of Reeva.

We make a little altar with an easel embedded in white rose petals and candles to display a black-and-white portrait of her as a model with a huge bouquet of roses. We are shielded from the big breaking waves by a barrier of rocks; occasional flecks of foam shower us and the roar of the ocean challenges the minister’s voice as he tells us death is no more than sleep, a temporary absence until the resurrection. I say to the minister, who has all his flowing gowns on, ‘Are we going into the water?’ And he says reassuringly, ‘It won’t be that deep.’ But even knee-deep, Barry can hardly stand up because of the pounding of the waves. We cling to each other. In the numbness of our grief, we feel the life force of the sea and that is strangely comforting. We all take ashes in our hands and spread the ashes into the water to send her off to the dolphins. We scatter rose petals as well and as we recite the words of the Lord’s Prayer the waves come in and gently carry her away. At the end we release a white dove to symbolise the release of her soul and then one hundred more white doves are released from crates along the beach. The minister concludes with the words – ‘Go forth into the world in peace, be of good courage, fight the good fight of faith, that you may finish your course with joy.’ I am overcome with emotion. Throughout the service the minister says words I know Reeva would have responded to. I feel her presence. The doves don’t go away. They fly out with the ashes and then they swoop around in a circle and come back to us. That’s magical. I take it as a sign that she will stay with us, that I will be able to sense her and talk to her all the time.

Reeva was very close to her grandfather, Barry’s stepfather, who also had his ashes scattered in the Indian Ocean – at Bloubergstrand in Cape Town with Table Mountain in the background. She had his name tattooed inside her left wrist: Alec Luigi Serra. When she came back from filming the reality programme
Tropika Island of Treasure
in Jamaica, she told me that swimming with dolphins had been the best experience of her life. So I’m sure this is what she would have wanted, to be free and at peace with the dolphins. Pods of dolphins swim close to the shore at this beach and are often seen leaping through the waves. I know she would have wanted to be with them. She’s out there with them now. I love thinking of her swimming with them, letting them kiss her, pulling her along, with a smile of pure pleasure breaking across her face. Whenever she used to snuggle up in bed with me I always thought she smelt of the sea.

I feel the ceremony is one tiny, tiny step towards… not closure – I’m not sure we will ever have that – but towards a point where we can consider moving forward with our lives. I treasure a stone picked up from the beach which Barry’s niece Kim had inscribed for me with Reeva’s name and the date.

On the night Reeva died an owl flew very slowly in front of my friend Jennifer as she drove back home from her restaurant, Peppa Joe’s, just after 3 a.m. She’s lived in the country for a long time and she’s never witnessed an owl cross her path. The sight startled her; as she went to bed, she wondered if it was a sign and what it might mean, because in many cultures owls are associated with the other world and spiritual truth. Jenny and Reeva were very close – Reeva was like a daughter to her – and when she heard the news the next morning she realised what the owl had come to tell her.

Reeva was a beautiful spirit, always smiling and laughing. Kim, too, told me of a vision she had of Reeva with their grandfather, as if they were in heaven together, a good year before Valentine’s Day 2013. Reeva was very close to her grandpa. They adored each other and she wrote him letters long after most people had given up the post for texts and emails. He had tried to call her two days before he passed on, and Reeva had not had time to return his call. When he died, she felt terribly guilty and upset that she had let him down and had not managed to contact him after that last call. She was never one to show that she was unhappy, but her distress about this overflowed in her cousin’s presence. Kim reassured her that Grandpa would understand she had a busy life and that he would never hold a missed telephone call against the girl he loved so much. Later, Kim was at a retreat called Temenos in McGregor, near Robertson in the Western Cape. She was sitting in the serene spiral garden when there was a slight breeze in the trees and she looked up and saw Reeva and her grandfather walking hand in hand in the sky. Kim rang her in Johannesburg and said, ‘I want you to know, I’ve had this vision of you and Grandpa walking happily with linked arms,’ and Reeva replied, ‘What are you telling me? Kimmy, are you mad?’ And Kim told her it was her way of saying Grandpa was fine.

Now, she wonders, did the vision mean something else?

We are all asking these sorts of questions. You try to find some meaning in a situation that doesn’t seem to make sense. You try and work out what life means and how it works. We need answers. What happened? Why? Was it somehow part of Reeva’s destiny?

Reeva meant the world to me. People don’t know what to say to me because, in truth, nothing can bring a happy ending. I’ve learnt not to look for answers from other people. Only God knows my deep-seated pain. My parents gave me my religion and to me that is the most important thing. Although, with everything we’re going through, I can’t pretend it hasn’t made a difference to the connection. I can’t understand why this has happened to Reeva. I ask anguished questions. I drift away from my previous assumed beliefs, because it’s hard to understand why something like this must happen to such a good child who has done no wrong and was a much-loved person. I’m not fond of going to church now, but that’s not because I’ve lost my faith, it’s because I feel uncomfortable seeking solace in the company of lots of people who recognise me. I’ve become a bit of a recluse due to the curiosity and scrutiny. But, deep down, I still believe in God. I’m just trying to puzzle out his mysterious ways.

Reeva and I had sat down and discussed what would happen if one of us died. We promised each other that whoever died first would send signs to the other to let them know they were okay. After Reeva died I went almost every day to spend time with Jennifer at Peppa Joe’s. She and I would sit with a cup of coffee next to the fireplace which is used as an indoor
braai
or barbecue. Soon after Reeva died, things started dropping down the chimney. Objects dropped down at home as well, and I take it as a sign. Reeva had a thing about feathers; she loved their delicacy and beauty. I started to notice little white feathers and I’d think: She’s here. I’m sure there are lots of things you cling to in grief as signs that the person you have lost has not really gone away, and it makes me feel better to believe that her spirit is still with us, that there is some sort of communication and that she is telling me she is all right.

People write to me to say I should try not to be too unhappy because she
is
still with us and she wouldn’t want us to be unhappy. And that helps. I love hearing people say things that suggest she still has strong desires and feelings, because she was a powerful personality. She can see that I can laugh. Soon after we lost Reeva, Simone chose to leave her job in England and move to stay with Barry and me. Like me, she’s not very domesticated. Reeva was quite the opposite and Simone always says, ‘She’s watching us now. We’re having too much to drink’ – because she didn’t like me having a drink. That’s how she was! I always say at the age of twelve she became my mother and I became her daughter. She was so much fun, a real character – that’s how I like to remember us, Simone, Reeva and myself, all three of us laughing together.

There’ll always be the pain and the hurt now. That is never going to go away. I miss her so much. I can’t phone her. I will never be able to talk with her again. I still have her number in my phone. I won’t ever delete it. How could I just get rid of it? Barry also has her number in his phone and he has wanted to call it. She phoned me every Saturday evening and her father every Sunday evening for a long chat. Those times of the week feel especially empty. She was always concerned about us and wanting to take care of us. She would want us to be happy, I know that.

Missionaries in Ireland wrote to say they will be praying for her soul every day. A young artist called Etmáál van Jaarsveld, who is losing his sight to macular degeneration, painted a portrait of her as the tenth in his series of famous women as a personal gift to us. He was mad about her, and wondered about painting her. He talked about Reeva a lot to his mother and she said, ‘Just do it.’ He has captured her perfectly on canvas: her posture, her manner, her spirit. It is breathtakingly beautiful. When it was delivered if felt as if she had just walked into the house. An elderly man sent me R150 and wants me to buy a rose in Reeva’s favourite colour, pale pink. People are kind.

Reclaiming Reeva

I think that the way you go out, not just your journey in life, but the way you go out and the way you make your exit is so important. You either make an impact in a positive way or negative way… just maintain integrity and maintain class and always be true to yourself.
 

Reeva Steenkamp,
Tropika Island of Treasure
5 February 2013

At the end of Reeva’s funeral, my brother-in-law Mike addressed the media gathered outside the Victoria Park Crematorium Chapel and said, ‘Reeva stood against abuse against innocent women and that stand is more powerful now. She represented a world of strength, and people coming out of the church are stronger.’

That is the legacy we, her family, want to preserve. Since Reeva lost her life on 14 February 2013, she has been relentlessly referred to as ‘Oscar Pistorius’s model girlfriend’, the ‘slain glamour model and reality TV star’ and as ‘the deceased’ by the judge and the defence team in the court proceedings. But Reeva was so much more than her day job and so much more than a beautiful woman photographed at red-carpet events next to a global sporting celebrity like the trophy girlfriend. She was as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside. She was a wonderful daughter and friend, a personality who brightened so many lives, and she was also a law graduate and an exemplary citizen of modern ‘rainbow nation’ South Africa. She was not happy to sit back on her success as a model and TV personality; she wanted to use that platform to become a passionate voice for causes she felt strongly about and one day to play an effective legal role in raising the issue of abuse against women when she returned to a career in law.

Actress Phuti Khomo, who starred alongside her in
Tropika Island of Treasure 5,
summed this up perfectly in a letter she wrote to Reeva after her death which was published in the South African Sunday newspaper
City Press
:

You spoke isiXhosa but weren’t as fluent as you were when you were younger, so you planned on taking isiXhosa lessons so that you could communicate with your friends back in Umthatha and make them feel that they could still relate to you. It’s that kind of selflessness that drew me so close to you. Many people don’t know that the dream of becoming a model first came to you while lying paralysed in a hospital for months after a back injury incurred while horse riding… You were educated, smart, beautiful, humble, kind, loving and understanding… Every time I read the papers or watch the news, the story always starts with ‘Oscar Pistorius’ girlfriend’. No! I refuse to let that be your title. You are not going to be remembered as ‘the girlfriend’. You wore many titles, some of which the world has yet to see. But the world will echo your name and remember you for who YOU are… REEVA STEENKAMP.

It is a terrible irony that Reeva, who was super conscious of violence against women in South Africa, should now be famous all over the world as a symbol of domestic abuse. Her death has become a rallying point for campaigns. It seems painfully improbable that she met her untimely death on St Valentine’s Day, the very date associated with romance and angelic winged cupids firing off love-inducing arrows; a day on which she had gone to cook a romantic dinner for her boyfriend, taking him a carefully wrapped present and card. Valentine’s Day did not mean much to me or to Barry at our age. But for Reeva, it was a day she always noted with girlish excitement. She would want it to be a thrilling day for all her friends, like Abigail – a close friend from Port Elizabeth – with whom she’d annually exchange greetings: ‘Happy Valentine’s Day Sista!’ She loved birthdays, engagements, weddings and holidays which are cause for cakes and celebrations; she was good at choosing presents and cards and creating a sense of occasion. Now for us, and for her friends, 14 February will always signify the anniversary of her death. A day of romantic froth for others will always for us be a dark day accompanied by pain and suffering.