Home and family are everything

Oh, how life can fool you into skipping over the most important things at times.

Last weekend, the lovely Snapdragon decided that we have to go to Sun City’s Valley of the Waves to give the children a day of cavorting in the water and to soak up the sun.

Of course, I hated the idea. It’s a prohibitively expensive outing, a long drive and a substantial sacrifice in the form of time. We drove the 150km from Jozi to the Pilanesberg. At least the fuel price dropped a bit.

We paid the exorbitant entry fee and when we boarded the bus next to the car park, I saw little Egg’s face. I had been fuming inside about the ridiculous outing, but my daughter was looking forward to the biggest adventure of her short life.

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She enjoyed every second, running away from the man-made waves, sprinting to get as many turns on the slides as possible and playing in the sand.

Later, when I took her for an ice cream to allow her to catch her breath, she looked at me seriously. “It’s not the real sea, is it?” she asked. “No,” I replied. “And the sand is fake and the rocks are fake and the water isn’t salty,” she added.

“Everything’s fake.” “Everything’s fake,” I agreed. She shrugged: “At least the fun is real. We’re a real family.”

On the way home, she couldn’t stop talking about “the best day of her life”. She even suggested buying a live chicken at one of the roadside stalls in a village on the way “to make the day perfect”.

When we stopped for fuel, she took my hand. “Can we do this again?” she asked. “But it’s not fun if you’re not there.” I squeezed her hand.

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Later, I stopped at a roadside vendor and bought a beaded rooster – handmade, like the best memories. The children loved it. Back home, they placed it on the kitchen table. “It’s a cute rooster,” Snapdragon said softly later that evening.

“It’s not just a rooster,” I said. “It’s The Chicken of Contentment. It lives on the kitchen table so the whole world can see we’re happy.” “Don’t exaggerate,” Snapdragon said. “Surely not the whole world!”

I didn’t argue. How on earth can she understand that my humble home, my eccentric family, is my entire world?

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