THE STORY OF A DUCK AND A GOOSE
10 years ago I moved to an “estate” that was really a ghetto housing complex for single mums and juvie delinquents. It was the best move I ever made, though I could not sleep as my flat was 30 cm above the main road, opposite a dog pound and downstairs from friendly drug dealers, yours was across the road from the laundry room/overweight teenage love shack and next door the tennis courts/stolen horse exercise arena. We spent our carefree ghetto days drinking concoctions out of your ever stocked back pack, attempting to annihilate each other at mixed martial arts classes, not to forget a short lived stint at pole dancing, climbing the alleyways of night club bathrooms to see who could touch the roof, hiring dodgy backdoor African taxis for our pub crawls, and having to push them down the road to start, eating KFC and pretending it was vegetarian cous cous and finding our husbands, with all the grace and class of two siberian hookers with fire dancing fetishes.
The next stage of our friendship involved finding the men we would marry (not before you helped me through a dramatic mid 20s break up,complete with late night phone calls, ugly cries and me becoming one with your spare couch) We then celebrated your engagement, and later as I watched you walk down the isle., I was struck by how talented, and loved you where, how creative, how thoughtful and how beautiful. That night I also accepted a R100 bet with your boss to down a drink with a flying ant in it. Easiest cash I have made to date..
You where my bridesmaid at 8 months pregnant,you where made to jump in the air for action photos, and I made you stand in 40 degree heat in a green dress that I know made your bum sweat… You didn’t complain, you even held my dress up in the bathroom as I wee’d.
You finally got your amazing Baby boy, and discovered a passion for childbirth in the process, managing to become a qualified doula with a 3 month old baby.
You then not only held my hand as I had my first baby, you where my best bitchy little doula, campaigning for everything you knew I wanted and needed, I will never forget how proud you where when you announced her name to the hospital staff. That was one of the best moment s of my life in so many ways.
Our friendship continued through marriage ups and downs, financial problems, job losses, new businesses, fertility issues, surprise babies, horrid health problems, family loss and lots and lots of wine, 30 seconds, Transkei trips, camping adventures, monumental hair fuck ups, and general debauchery.
When we decided to immigrate, you supported us, you drove us, our 2 babies and our 35kgs of Sporting Goods to the airport . We hugged goodbye in our usual un touchy-feely, laughing way, but then you said “love you goose” and all I wanted to do was run back to your car, find your illegal stash of cigarettes, put on an ice T cd and never leave.. I knew I could not ever find another you. And I knew I didn’t want to.
It’s been a year without you, a year in a new country, a year of sporadic messages and time differences.. I have missed you every day.
3 months ago you sent a message saying you where thinking of coming to NZ. Mike said, they wont come.. I laughed and said lets see. Mike said if she can pull this off, I will never doubt her again ( I never doubted you). 3 weeks ago you told us things where happening and 3 Days Ago you got your visa….3 days ago mike told me, Lon is a fucking machine! Damn straight, boy.
And so, almost to the day my best friend drove us and our overweight sporting equipment to the airport on a sunny African day, I get to say that same very best friend will be driving to the airport with her own family and sporting goods to begin her new life in New Zealand, she will be happy and sad and scared and she will say goodbye to those she loves most…
But then my duck, you will arrive at the dawn of your new adventure, you will feel all the weight slowly starting to fall off your shoulders, you will crack open your little hip flask and you will take your first sip of smuggled R30 vodka and you will be home…
If ever a family deserved to live the best life and have every adventure they imagine, its you my duck.
AND I CANNOT FUCKING WAIT
I LOVE |YOU
