Grade 10, Malvern High Schoool
There lived a father and daughter who made the place their own little paradise. Nqobile was the father, and he lived with his beautiful daughter Awande.
Nqobile was a man of dignity and respect, and he lived only for the truth. He lived an exemplary life in the neighbourhood. The same principles he lived by, he taught his daughter who he adored. Nqobile worked in a dump site and the little he got was for his daughter. He had no wife since “umama kaAwande” ran away after giving birth to Awande.
Awande loved her father so much, he was her male role model. He taught her everything she knew for sixteen years. Awande and Nqobile were so close, you wouldn’t even think that the father and daughter had any issues at home. Awande had one fear that she was afraid would some day become reality. Weeks passed by, and Awande’s father Nqobile got into an accident and was admitted at KwaThema Hospital. He was in a very severe condition, it was a matter of life and death. Awande felt like her life was at an end, and her fear was turning into reality. She had never imagined life without her dad, and was not ready to live without the man close to her heart. Nqobile’s situation was getting worse as days passed; he had asked one of the nurses to call his daughter to come to the hospital, as he had to say something very important to Awande.
Awande rushed to the hospital. A lot was going on in her mind; she didn’t know how to react to whatever her dad had to say. She was not in a good space, and neither were her emotions. Nqobile was lying in his hospital bed when Awande walked in. Her eyes were filled with a running stream of tears, and no word could escape from her shivering lips. As she stood next to the bed that her father was lying on, she began to pray to the Lord, begging him terribly to keep her father alive. Nqobile touched his daughter’s shoulder and asked her to stop crying; he then tried to sit up straight so he could talk to his little princess and tell her how much he loved her, and how he wished to be right by her side all the time. Even though he might not be there physically but he would be there, in her heart, mind and spirit. Awande quickly closed her father’s mouth with both her quivering hands, and demanded her father to stop speaking like a dying man. Nqobile couldn’t hold back his tears as he watched Awande break down due to his piercing words. He held his daughter’s hand and reassured her that even if he passed on or lived, he would always be her loving father, her hero, the first man she loved wholeheartedly, and lastly the man that had groomed her to the young lady she is now. Those were Nqobile’s last words, and the room went silent. Awande opened her teary eyes, and the cataclysm of her life had happened.
The death of her father brought emptiness and sorrow on Awande. His funeral was closed, since he had no family other than his daughter. She couldn’t believe that the man she loved since birth was now in a hearse; neither did she believe that he was gone. Awande treasured all the memories she shared with Nqobile.
As she tried to live a normal life after his death, the walls seem to be caving in every time her father came into her mind. Her only wish was to reverse what had happened, but that was impossible. She decided not to give up, to keep going till the day she made her father proud, and to fulfil every promise she had made to him. Nqobile was and is the apple of Awande’s eye.