Since I reached 13 years of age I had always prayed for my day of death to arrive, as I had no hope. There was nothing I liked about myself: how I thought and how I was. I hated living with a secret. I wished I could share it with someone, but I couldn’t do that. What would people say when they heard about my secret? I would be likened to every bad thing on the face of earth!

As we grew up, the minds of other boys were taken up with girls, but I could only think about one thing − Lizo! My love for him grew greater and greater. Lizo was my best friend and I valued him more than anything.

I knew I was different, but I kept on hiding the fact by doing what other boys were doing. I had girlfriends, but I felt nothing for them. Lizo was always in my thoughts, every day of my life, but he did not look at me that way. He took me for just another boy, showing no interest in me.

I started stressing when I discovered that this love of mine would never be returned, as Lizo was Chief Vezuhlanga’s only son. Lizo would never, under any situation, love me back. Knowing this, my self-hatred went a drastic step further, and I cut my wrists. I bled till I fainted, and only came around the next morning. I was upset to find that my attempt at suicide had not worked, and I made another attempt.

One night I locked myself in my room, and drained the battery dry, drinking its acid. I saw the room becoming dark, and was happy inside as I thought that my plan was succeeding.

* * * * *

“Oh, Thobani! Are you mad?” It was my mother’s voice. When I opened my eyes, I found her next to me, her eyes filled with tears. I was in hospital. I could smell the stink of medicine, and was lying in sheets that smelt of death.

“This is not the first time you have done this, child!” said my mother, still visibly angry. “The nurse also confirmed that.”

How does this nurse know me? I thought to myself.

“Show me your wrists,” she said.

I was embarrassed to show my wrists. But, because I was scared of her, I showed them. She saw the blade tracks on the veins, that had left wide, deep scars. My heart sank as I watched her crying again.

“Why on earth would you do such a thing, Thobani?” asked mother, sadly. “Don’t you know that you won’t be accepted by God in heaven?”

This God is the reason I attempted suicide. Pastor always preached about people like me – that they would not be welcome in heaven. I didn’t want to live with this ‘unforgivable sin’, as Pastor called it. I thought it was better to die instead of being labelled: ‘homosexual’.

My mother kept begging me to say what was troubling me.

“I am not a… person,” I began, then started to feel more at ease. I carried on telling her, but I couldn’t look at her, so I turned my face away, to the window.

“What do you mean, Thobani?” She walked around the bed to the side I was facing so that she could look me in the eyes. The tears started rolling, uncontrollably, down my cheeks. The truth poured out, as if something was dragging it from the bottom of my heart.

“I don’t know what I am, mother,” I went on, with my mother sadly looking at me. Her gaze went straight to my heart. “I am not like other boys.”

“We are all different, my child. Just imagine how boring the world would be if we were all the same.”

I felt my mother’s love in these words, and my heartache lessened.

I didn’t know that my mother was different from her Pastor. The way she talked now was as if she was not part of the same congregation as that Pastor I hated so much.

“I am very different, mother.” She listened patiently, waiting for me to be clear. “I am what Pastor says God does not forgive.” I tried to think of the words I could use to make her understand. By her expression, I could tell she did not have a clue of what I was talking about.

Eventually I said the words: “Mother, I am gay.” I don’t know how I found the courage to say that.

“What is that?” she asked.

I had to explain to her what being gay meant because my mother had never heard of that. “I like other men.”

* * * *

Tell us what you think: Will Thobani’s mother continue to love her son even though she has now heard that he is gay? What do you think about what the Pastor says?