Depression survivor tells the story

One moment, Keneo Bonang’s husband was dropping their daughter at school in the morning, and the next moment he was reported dead, killed by petty thieves for his mobile phone and wallet. On that fateful Thursday in 2014, Bonang 31 says she received a call from her man around 6pm telling her that he had run out of petrol near Grand Palm hotel in Mogoditshane. She would ask if he needed her to bring him some, and he told her he would ask colleagues. Then he became impatient, she says, and walked to a nearby fuel station. It was then that two young men attacked him, and stabbed him. In an interview with The Midweek Sun, Bonang however says she did not find out immediately that her husband had been murdered. “I called and called him but he didn’t answer the phone. Around 2am, she’d call her sister as she was now getting worried. It was only when I arrived at my sister’s house that our other sister called us with a suspicious tone, asking where Kabo, my husband, then 36, was. Upon driving to her house, a security guard told us people had gathered in the house and that, “it looks like someone is dead,” she said, and that is when she received the sad news. Bonang says that losing her husband only eight months after their wedding took a toll on her. They were still in a honeymoon phase, and again, she found out a day after his funeral that she was pregnant with their second child. “I didn’t know that ‘till death do us part’ would mean eight months. I became a widow instantly,” she says. Her church, Seventh Day Adventist immediately started counselling her the day she lost her husband, something she is thankful for. Her take is that widows need counselling as soon as the news of their husbands’ death breaks. She says that the most difficult processes are identifying the deceased at the mortuary, arrival of the body at home (Kgoroso), being told to sleep next to the coffin and when the coffin goes down the grave. “Especially if the death was tragic, you can lose your mind because of trauma. You need to be counselled early,” she says. I became a tragic widow’ Bonang was on a teaching contract and it had come to an end a month before her husband’s death. She says that between 2014 and 2017 January, she sunk into deep depression. She moved back to her mother’s house in Maun. “I was incredibly overwhelmed, shocked, traumatised and deeply saddened. All of the emotional stress and pain resulted in physical ailment and pain.I had pain everywhere - legs, feet, ears, arms, and this excruciating pain wouldn’t stop. I had body tremors,” she says, adding that the neurologist had thought she had Multiple Sclerosis, an incurable condition which presented the aforementioned symptoms. She says that her BOMAID medical fund was depleted in a space of seven months, and she had to use her cash or go to Princess Marina hospital. After the baby arrived, she was diagnosed with Psycho-somatic disorder, which involves both mind and body. It is thought to be particularly vulnerable to mental factors such as stress and anxiety. She would then start counselling with a psychologist whom she says was very good. She also shares that at one point she tried a life of clubbing and drinking to escape the grief. ‘I beat depression’ After moving from the house she shared with her husband in 2015, Bonang says she decided this year in January to move back in and to start afresh with her two children. She says that this Tuesday morning her young daughter came to her asking where her father was and wanted to confirm if he was dead as her older sister had told her. “I had to take the bull by the horn. It has happened and I have accepted that I have lost my husband. He was a sweet, loving and kind man and we loved each other deeply. But I have to face it and can’t grieve forever,” she says. She advises young married women to ensure they are financially sound and to invest so that life does not end when their husbands pass. Other than being an administrator at Bokamoso Private Hospital, Bonang also runs a pre-school in Maun. But is she dating? She laughs it off, saying that she is safeguarding her children and that if she finds someone, she will only introduce him to her children after he has paid Bogadi (marriage price) for her. Meanwhile, her husband’s killers are still at large.