It is said that the passing of an elder or one who has been sick for a while is easier to accept than the sudden passing of a healthy or younger person. In a single day, all three were experienced.
On the day Pathisa Nyathi passed away, a sombre, cloudless sky watched over the city of Bulawayo. We were gathered at the Brethren in Christ Church, right across from the old Inxwala fields where the Ndebele king held court. Dlodlo, an inspirational man by many accounts – from his work in the arts to his administration at the Highlanders Football Club – was a true son of the ancient city who had slipped away alone in his home, barely noticed for some days. In the mass of weeping artists, football fans, family, friends and all the people whose lives he had touched, my phone rang and I crawled into a deeper anguish: a dear cousin, Vitalis Ndiweni, who had recently had a stroke, was no more. I looked to the sky as if to question a god and shake my fist at his throne, and a halo confronted me – a bright rainbow circle crowning the sun.
There was something akin to a revelation, not quite an omen, something comforting in the face of pain. I couldn’t quite make out what it meant until I gathered myself, and a friend and I made our way to Luveve, where my cousin’s funeral would be held. A little later, we heard that Pathisa Nyathi had passed on – two deaths and a funeral, like some crazed battlefield had come down to the City of Kings. I then understood the meaning of the halo, or at least bestowed some meaning to it: a portal had opened for pure souls to escape into the unknown.
It is customary to say that a library burns down with the death of an elder. I am not entirely satisfied with that sentiment in the case of Pathisa Nyathi. Next to the stature of his entire output as a researcher, author and historian, all others shrivel to mere mortals. Once, I wrote that many people may share a name with him, but there is no question of who the subject of discussion is when the name Pathisa is mentioned. Fame is not always the measure of brilliance; in his case, it was and is. Not every historian or writer has the mayor at his funeral offering to name a major street after him; not every writer has the minister of state at their state-sponsored funeral, conveying the president’s condolences. Not every former science teacher has their funeral at the Bulawayo Amphitheatre, a venue designed to accommodate thousands. I remain firm in my belief that celebrity status, for once, indicates exceptional achievement.
Pathisa’s was a fame built on consistent output, with thousands of articles published in the Sunday News, many more published across the world, and a literary output I estimate at over 100 publications. (At some point, years before the lockdown, someone said he had written over 70 books. Pathisa was only glad someone else was counting, because he didn’t know the exact number either.) May our grief not make light of his achievements. It is selfish to ask the sick to keep on suffering, just as it is to ask the old to live forever.
In the writer’s ink lies the elixir to immortality. What’s done is done; the battle has been lost and won. While the breath is gone, the words still shine. The library lives on; it did not burn down. The tomes will tell of times long gone, even before their author was born, and will light ways even after we are coral and stone, through aeons yet unknown.
A life like Pathisa’s is inspiring in its recognition of the brevity of our time here in this realm. It is a reminder to miss those who shuffle off the mortal coil, but also to bequeath unto mankind gifts of light and beauty. It is to remember the ancient words of Ndebele wisdom: “Kuyofa amadoda kusale izobongo” (Men will pass, but their names remain). And let it be so with this humble man from Silobela, aptly named “Helper” for his Promethean gifts to mankind – not just to his clan and tribe, but to the nation and the continent, and further beyond. A sage in the times he lived in, and beyond, and beyond the beyond.