Simon Nqweniso

About four years ago, I was working in town and going to a gym in Sea Point. The only saving grace of the exercise regime at this highly unfriendly place of torture was the car guard I happened to meet in the area called “Judah” (his real name was Simon). Every gymming day we would end up talking for ages outside my car. Judah loved boxing and would often demonstrate the moves. He made me laugh a lot. He had a captain’s hat that he loved wearing on his more eccentric days. 

Last year, in September, Judah died of cancer. His conversations just before getting really sick would often revolve around what legacy he would leave. He had nothing (what he did have often got stolen) but he laboured over the garden around the tennis court and he hoped people would remember him by it. The irony is I think he was the bravest, most generous spirited person I have ever had the pleasure to meet. I think everyone who met him recognised that! He should have been on podiums speaking to multitudes – he had that kind of charisma. I don’t fully understand how lives like his can be so “unknown”. I guess I knew him and that counts somehow in some way…but it troubles me that there are so many like Judah who just aren’t seen. 

Hinds Feet on High Places “I have often wondered about the wild flowers,” Much Afraid said. “It does seem strange that such unnumbered multitudes should bloom in the wild places of the earth where perhaps nobody ever sees them …” The look the Shepherd turned on her was very beautiful. “Nothing my Father and I have made is ever wasted,” he said quietly, “…I must tell you a great truth, Much Afraid, which only a few understand. All the fairest beauties in the human soul, its greatest victories, and its most splendid achievements are always these which no one else knows anything about, or can only dimly guess at.”– Hannah Hubbard, (pg34)