The following morning my mother left with Jayden. I didn’t want Jayden to go, but how was I going to look for a job with him? Getting help from people every day – living from hand to mouth – was far from ideal. God had blessed me with a clever mind and I wanted to use what I studied at college to look for a job. I held Jayden in my arms and gave him a kiss on his cute mouth.

It was only three weeks later that my father found out about Jayden.

“A mother stays with her child, so go and fetch your son. You had him on your own and it’s not my wife’s duty to take care of him!” he said angrily over the phone.

“I will send some money for someone to bring him,” I said to him.

Roviss sent money for my sister to bring Jayden to Cape Town. I had taken a step forward and three backwards. I had no job, no money, and soon I would have no place to stay. And I had no-one to turn to.

Roviss somehow convinced his brother that I should stay with him in Masiphumelele. But his brother didn’t want us there. He lived in the main house and our bedroom was in an old shack behind the house. It was the most horrible of places.

Every day I was miserable. When Roviss came to visit his brother he would make sure he sat three seats away from Jayden and I. He would never offer to hold the baby, but would just look at us. That never bothered me anymore – I had my son to worry about, not Roviss.

I had found a part-time, temporary job at an accounting services company in Kommetjie so I could now take care of Jayden and myself. Aunt Rachel kept him when I went to work and I took him back in the evening.

I remember one day when Jayden fell seriously ill around midnight. I went to wake up his uncle to take us to the hospital. I stood there for almost thirty minutes calling for him to help me, but he didn’t open his door. I walked with Jayden all the way to my aunt’s place in the middle of the night.

It was a Saturday evening in October when Jayden’s uncle sat us down. He politely told us to move out of his shack; he needed to put his building material in it.

The following morning when I went to church I informed Rose, my pastor’s wife, about my situation. She stood up at the pulpit and asked for financial assistance for me to buy my own shack in Masi. Everyone had something to assist me with. R1700 was raised that morning for me to go and buy a shack. The congregation at Word of Life showed me so much love and support through my dark days.

On the 1st of November I moved to my shack. It was near the entrance in Masiphumelele and convenient for travelling. The shack wasn’t a new one and had some holes. It wasn’t perfect – but it was mine.

That same night we had moved to the new place, it started raining very heavily. Rain started dropping on one side of the bed so that I had to put a dish there. I added an extra blanket for Jayden but couldn’t manage to fall asleep myself.

That Friday was my last month at the accounting service company in Kommetjie. I had already started looking for a new job, but to no avail. Rumour had it that Roviss had started a company in the entertainment industry. I didn’t waste my energy thinking about that because my focus was on Jayden, and getting a new job.

My living conditions depressed me. I had more suicidal thoughts and yet now I had another human to think about. Pastor Mapininga, who was like a mother, a sister, friend and mentor, referred me to Rose for counselling when I confided in her. We arranged to meet Sunday before the service so we could talk.

The women at the church were an amazing bunch. I received counselling, emotional support, and prayers. During that counselling session I shed a lot of tears, but I knew that those were my last tears, letting go any form of rejection I had been harbouring in my heart. I wiped them away and we had a short prayer.

Two days later I received a phone call for an interview with a security company in Fish Eagle Park. They needed a personal assistant. I went for the interview with confidence. A voice inside me knew that the job was mine, regardless of the number of people who were after the same job. As I was heading back home, walking on foot along the Kommetjie road, the boss’s wife gave me a call to inform me that I had got the job.

“Thank you Lord!” I shouted with joy.

Meanwhile Roviss had gone three months without sending me any money towards Jayden. I was broke. It was a Friday when I took a train to Stellenbosch. I left Jayden behind with my aunt, since the weather was a bit chilly to go out with him. I got to his place around 7 p.m., and the swing gate was locked, but the door was wide open.

Roviss was sitting in the lounge having his supper. I knocked and knocked. He could see me from where he was sitting but he never stood up. A few minutes later he stood up and went to the kitchen. All these things, he did as I stood outside in the cold weather. The light jersey I had on didn’t help me at all.

Two hours passed, and Roviss switched off all his lights and went to his bedroom. I lay on the steps outside, opposite Roviss’s flat, without a blanket. A couple saw me and were worried. I told them what had happened and why I was there.

“Prosperity and I are adults and we can solve our issues on our own,” Roviss said calmly when they went to talk to him.

“Can’t you please open the door for her to sleep on a couch at least? Don’t treat a human being like a dog, man!” the woman’s husband said in anger.

They tried all they could to convince him to open up for me, but he never did. We went back to their flat and they provided me with food to eat. They were having a get together with a few friends who were in the lounge.

They helped me call Paddy, a colleague, who came to my rescue and agreed to fetch me and take me home.

A few days later I went to Simon’s Town Court to file for maintenance and he started paying it in February 2013. A month after getting a new job, I moved out of Masiphumelele to a better place.

He also started asking to see Jayden about five or six times this year. It’s Jayden’s right to spend time with his father, regardless of the heartbreak he put me through. The rage and anger I had towards him is gone because I learnt how to forgive him.

My father forgave me at last and he loves Jayden to bits.

As I look at it now, I see all my trials and tribulations as part of being carved into a strong woman. I’m still on the journey of rebuilding my life and that of my son, but one thing I know is that we’ll both live good lives.

I’ll always be thankful and grateful for all the people who helped me throughout the hard times I faced.

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Tell us what you think: Would you forgive people that have wronged you like they have Prosperity?