She was youthful and exuberant. Devotion and fervour were her pillars of strength. Her private life was tranquil and happy. She believed in striving for the better. Yes, she was phenomenal as everyone at school called her: Thandeka the Phenomenal.

Thandeka grew up in the province of the Eastern Cape, in a small town called Libode, where she lived with her grandmother and her three siblings. Her late mother, Noxolo, who herself could not read or write, always wanted the best for her children. Before she died, she asked her mother to take care of her children and to make sure that they had a bright future. She did not want them to struggle and suffer like she did.

Indeed Thandeka’s grandmother was always there for them. She fulfilled the wishes of her late daughter. Thandeka’s mother died when Thandeka was only nine years old and their grandmother played a vital role in raising her grandchildren. She would wake up at 5am and prepare them lunch boxes, she was everything to them, she was their heroine.

Even though Thandeka’s family was a small family they were always happy and there was comfort in the family. Thandeka loved her family with all her heart. One of the things she loved was her grandmother’s cooking and, of course, she also loved the bedtime stories.

Their grandmother taught them a lot of things. One of the things she taught them was how to pray. At night they would play church songs they liked. On Sundays they would go to church together and come back home and cook. Thandeka would play with her siblings while her grandmother prepared meals. Sometimes she would go to the kitchen to help her grandmother with cooking. Her grandmother had a passion for cooking, she would purchase magazines with recipes because she liked trying out something new every day.

Thandeka’s grandmother, since she was old, had health issue. Three years after burying her daughter she suffered from a heart attack and had depression. She was in and out of hospital. Thandeka realised that her grandmother was not feeling well, but her grandmother did not want her to lose focus at school, so she acted as if everything was fine. But a week later she was admitted to hospital and she was in a critical condition. The doctors did not allow Thandeka to visit her because she was too young.

Now that her grandmother was admitted to hospital, Thandeka was forced to take care of her siblings. Her life became hard: imagine, she was only 12 years at the time. Taking care of her siblings changed her life completely. Even at school her performance dropped. She stopped playing with other kids, some did not even want to be friends with her because she was always stressed and talking about all the bad things that were going on in her life.

She had no one to talk to. It is true when they say that friends are few when the days are dark. She wished her mom was still alive, she wished there was someone of her age she could talk to who would understand her.

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