Stemme | Voices | Amazwi is LitNet’s series of 15 short, powerful monologues, written by established and upcoming playwrights, presented in collaboration with Suidoosterfees, NATi and ATKV.
In Sifiso Mzobe’s Papa dearest, a man remembers his late father who kept smiling while fading away into the arms of death. Sonwabo Mpandle performs the monologue, directed by Gaerin Hauptfleisch. Watch the performance here:
In this video, Sonwabo Mpandle and director Gaerin Hauptfleisch are in conversation about Sifiso Mzobe’s monologue Papa dearest.
Papa dearest
My daughter says your laughter and mine are the same. I know I look exactly like you, but exact laughter is something else. I have racked my brains wondering how I could have inherited your looks and even your laughter. Now I know I laugh like you because your laughter was the most constant sound in my life.
I remember your hands and how they aged over 40-odd years. Tough and muscular in your thirties. Graceful in your fifties. Wrinkled, grey-haired and gesturing empathy in your final years.
When I was young, I looked up when I looked at you. I looked up to you. By my late teens, I towered over you, yet I still looked up to you. Even when the undertaker opened your casket and I saw you before taking you home, I still looked up to you.
You were a mountain I used to climb when I was a child. A mountain I admired from a distance in my brooding teens. A mountain I admired up close when you cradled my child in your aging hands. A mountain I often had to prop up three times a week for 12 years on days when all your strength was gone – sapped by the dialysis machine at Entabeni Hospital.
I remember moments in no particular order. You being the only father present at my soccer games. Rage in your eyes when people would swear within earshot of children. Seeing you cry for the first time when my best friend, your father, passed away. Your hearty laugh when your children made the slightest progress – a passed grade, learner’s licence, driver’s licence. Your impatience when you taught me to drive. Teaching me to jab and knock out a man, lessons from your boxing days.
You made for us a wonderland during the war. I have mined history. I have watched documentaries and read books about the 1980s, my wonder years. Now, I realise I grew up during a civil war that raged on in the townships of KZN. But when I think of those times, I just hear your laughter and remember picnics, beach days and night outings at Mini Town.
I remember the pride in your stare when I told you I wanted to write. You asked me what my book was about a full five years before it was published. You gave me the little money you had when I said I was packing my bags and following my dream to be a writer. And when I was alone, far away from home, rewriting my novel in a dirty room at a backpacker hostel in Observatory in Cape Town, my cell phone would ring. And you’d laugh and ask, “What are they saying about your book, my boy?”
When things got bad, you said, “Try harder.” When life dealt us heavy blows, you said, “It will be alright. Never give up.”
I was with you the day the doctor told us the news. Your kidneys and heart were failing. The news took the wind out of your sails. You staggered, but like the good boxer you were, you quickly regained your strength. As your body failed, your mind just got stronger. Man, you were strong!
You faded in front of my eyes, yet you still kept that smile. I knew you were close to the end when you kept saying you were tired.
How can I thank you enough? You waited for my call, hooked up to all sorts of machines, your doctors and nurses saying it was just a matter of time. They said for two days you had not been responding to calls. Yet, when I called, you picked up your phone and said, “My boy, I’m seeing my mother. Here she is, right in front of me.”
I knew at that moment you were crossing to the other side.
I can’t ask for more from you, my father and friend. Well, perhaps before you faded away on that final phone call, I should have told you a joke so I could hear that hearty laugh one last time.
Stemme | Voices | Amazwi is supported by the National Arts Council.
Stemme | Voices | Amazwi is a New Writing project of LitNet and is supported by the LW Hiemstra Trust.
All the monologues are available here: