Please Listen to me...

Meeting my son

Submitted by Sue, Pretoria, South Africa

After months of correspondence with The Department of Social Welfare in Bulawayo, I made contact with a very helpful man, Mr Innocent Nkomozana, and this is the result: My son has been found after almost 33 years !!! He lives in Zimbabwe still... first names, Colin Stephen..surname not allowed to be revealed as yet. He runs a business near Bulawayo, has been married, divorced and is now married again. There is a son from his first marriage and his 2nd wife is pregnant with a girl. He was told that he had been adopted and sadly his adoptive parents are now deceased. And he wants to meet me as soon as possible. Because of the laws involved the first meeting/ personal contact has to be within the Welfare offices so Piet and I are driving up on Wednesday morning... 11th April. Apparently Colin will be in Bulawayo for the long weekend. All this information was given to me by Mr.Nkomazana earlier today so I have no idea how I'm feeling...nervous, scared, apprehensive, excited, curious - all rolled into one. (one month later, Sue completes the story) We rushed up to Bulawayo only to be delayed at the border due to a misunderstanding concerning the spares we were carrying for our own car. Eventually after paying R300.00 we got under way again 2 hours later. When we booked into the Holiday Inn there was an urgent message for us to contact Innocent Nkomazana from the Social Welfare services. He told us that my son would only be in Bulawayo for that day as he had to take supplies back to Binga the following morning and that we must come to his office straight away. (to top of next column)

So all tired and grubby we rushed off to Tredgold Buildings where the Department of Social Welfare is housed in Bulawayo.My husband Piet and myself, spent about half an hour with Mr. N. and then he went downstairs to fetch Colin and Natalie , his wife, who had arrived. I can't explain at all how I felt when he walked in the door ... so many emotions and thoughts and a stupid grin on my face !! We all spent about another half hour with Mr. N and then went off together for supper. We spent most of the next hour or two talking about every day things , where he'd been to school, his work, Zim etc. It was Piet who kept the conversation going... I seemed stunned. Colin was at the time getting over a bad bout of malaria and Natalie was very pregnant so the evening was rather short , we exchanged addresses and promised to write / stay in touch. We drove home to South Africa the next day and I felt absolutely exhausted ..after all the huge build up it all seemed rather empty and flat. I kept on telling myself that at least I'd met him and that he was well etc. Since that day we have spoken on the phone quite a few times and he calls me `Mom'. My new grandchild was born on the 29th April and Colin is now looking at coming to live in S.A. as things are not going too well up in Zim. I wish that we could just have some time alone to sit and talk face to face ..we are still basically strangers.. there are so many questions that I want to ask. Hopefully that time will come soon.