23 Nov 2025 ~ PLUNDERED FIGS

On my 50th birthday (18 May 2021) I was sitting in our home bakery. I was alone, contemplating a way to take my own life. Just as I was about to put my plan into action, I thought of what my family would experience when they got home from shopping. This made me pause for a moment, and in that moment my phone rang. It was Louis.

Reluctantly I answered. Through vigorous bursts of coughing he congratulated me on my birthday, explaining that he might have covid. I wished him luck and we ended the conversation just as my family came in through the door. I had missed my window of opportunity.

Louis tested positive for covid 19, was admitted to hospital and passed away a couple of weeks later on the first weekend of June. He was like a brother to me, and now he was gone. What an unimaginable loss.

Until this day I only had one fig from Riaan’s tree. The birds would always begin to plunder them even before they were ripe..

To me Louis was like a plundered fig. All that was left was the bits and pieces that will remind us of his existence. But maybe when death came to plunder him from his loved ones, he was forever saved from the burden of life. Maybe this is why it is said of the other side of the grave that “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.” 

Unknowingly, in his last days on earth, Louis in a way prevented me from adding grief to the lives of my family. I am grateful…