No matter how much Naadira Vanker wanted to see her 1-year-old grow old, darkness was always going to break in through her front door that morning.
There are two kinds of women, dead or surviving!
Sometimes the surviving die at the hands of a belly filled by their love, their kindness.
Sometimes the line between naivety and kindness is too thin to the perpetrator.
Its frail fabric fades at the tug of a random act of kindness.
Sometimes a “hello” is destined to evolve to murder, in how it erupts madness.
I would imagine a kind-hearted person’s aura glows bright.
It is the gleaming who are prey to some kind of darkness.
What a burden it must be, being a woman in a world full of men.
To be light, in a world full of moths, camouflaged as butterflies, with bitter truths, bad intentions and better lies.
Naadira would often cook fresh hot meals for security guards at the complex where she lived, in Lenasia, south of Johannesburg. A “thank you for your protection” in the form of a steamy dish.
She shared her home with her husband, Imraan Haider, their daughter aged 9, and sons, aged 7, 3 and the 1-year-old she wanted to see grow old.
When her husband left for work after 6am on April 22, little did Naadira know she was already dangling on a rope balancing beam, as thin as the line between being kind and naive. Her kidnappers had broken in. Their rage had a date with her skin.
Her eldest girl and boy were up with her, they too got their fair share of this utterly heinous sin.
The boy; punched, kicked and choked until he passed out.
The girl; also beaten to the point of being knocked out.
The 2-year-old was sleeping, the 1-year-old was wrapped in blankets, wailing.
Naadira; she was abducted from her home, subsequently murdered. Her light turned off, you know how shadows behave.
In the backyard of a security guard, she often cooked fresh hot meals for, her body was found in a shallow grave.
For every time a dog is as loyal, another may bite the hand that feeds it.
We have become accustomed to men confiscating air from the lungs of women, like they don’t need it.
No matter how much Naadira Vanker wanted to see her 1-year-old grow old, darkness was always going to break in through her front door that morning.
If not her, any other of the women surviving!
What is your home, if you can’t even feel safe under your skin?
No matter how cold the day, it seems you can’t bargain your safety with a hot meal.
This is when a dish becomes food for evil thoughts.
I wonder how much more heat in the kitchen did she have to withstand for her to be surviving today.
After all, the righteous eat to the satisfaction of their souls: but the belly of the wicked shall want.