Amanda Watson: A tribute to a destiny helper lost to grief

Grief is a cruel kind of education, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says in her book, Notes on Grief – and I think I, for the first time, understand that quote.

Life gives you destiny helpers; those people who carry you – as some have for most of my life.

Even though many of them had no close relationship with me, they still have carried and helped me.

These are people who benefitted nothing and expected nothing. They just had pure intentions in helping out this little girl.

Now, back to grief – and the devastating loss of The Citizen’s news editor Amanda Watson.

I miss her because she was undoubtedly one of my destiny helpers.

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She was the voice of reminder. I would’ve had a text on Monday reminding me: “You owe me a column this week.”

Only, I didn’t get that reminder on Monday – because Amanda died…

When I heard of Amanda’s death, I was reminded what a destiny helper God had blessed me with.

So, as I write these words, I am not sure whether I am writing about destiny helpers or grief, because both of these make sense to me in this moment.

This year, when I first walked inside the newsroom at The Citizen, I was nervous, scared and not sure if I belonged. I was shown a chair where I waited for my editor. Some 30 minutes later, a tall woman wearing sneakers, a pair of jeans and an army green T-shirt, holding an army green backpack, walked in.

I instantly knew that was my editor. She came up to me and said: “Morning, you must be Zanele. You are going to be working with me, okay?”

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Hearing her deep voice instilled a bit of fear in me but little did I know behind that voice was a soft and gentle bear. On my first day, I watched how Amanda spoke to my colleagues; how free they were around her. I saw she was a straight talker and I saw her passion for journalism.

Oh, it had to rub off on you.

I would see that fire in her once in a while when I would be slacking on some stories. “Who taught you to write like this because, hell no, I didn’t? What does our style guide say? What is going on with you? What the hell? Never send me work like this again; this is not you.”

And when she spoke like this, I knew she was unhappy with my work…

But, see, I could take criticism from Amanda. I knew it came from a good place. Mistakes were allowed, but you better do better tomorrow.

“Own your story; your work should speak for you. Fight for your place and remember why you are here.” This was Amanda.

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Grief is weird. It’s realising I will never see her walk through that door again or hear the sound of her pounding her keyboard.

The silence is deafening.

I won’t see her rolling her eyes over my word count. She won’t send me her weird GIF stickers on WhatsApp again (I still wonder where she got them). That’s the grief Chimamanda spoke about.

One day, when I speak of my journalism career and where I started, Amanda’s name will be known as one of my destiny helpers – a destiny helper who laid a good foundation.

Amanda was the arranger of stories; of life…