Missing My Oumatjie

I wish I could go back in time for one more day, just one more day and sit in my Oumatjie’s kitchen and actually eat the food she spent the whole afternoon preparing for me. I used to eat so many mulberries off her mulberry tree that by the time that it was time for dinner, I was full!

Now that I am a Mum and an Ouma, I love to cook for my family and I love spending the afternoon in the kitchen preparing food for them. I would like to think that I get this from my Oumatjie.

She would make the most delicious kook kos [stew] and I wish I could go back and taste it again… savour the sauce and the soft meat… I have tried to replicate the food she made but I was too young to ask her for her recipe or ask her how to make it and I never thought of asking to watch what she was doing. I know she especially made me souskluitjies but my attempts at making souskluitjies have not been successful. Even though I don't eat chicken anymore, I remember how much I used to love her home-made chicken soup that she used to chop Vienna sausages into as a treat for me. She used to call me Miss Marie Biscuit – Custard. I know that even on her small pension, she would especially buy me Marie biscuits and make me custard so I could cut bananas into it. Yum! Still a treat I enjoy to this day!

She was the most loving woman and I used to love visiting her for a few days in the school holidays. She was so kind-hearted and I remember her and my Oupa Riekert loved gardening. They grew their own fruit and vegetables and whenever we went there they would be working together in the garden. I loved seeing them together and I can still see them tending to their neat rows of vegetables that were well-watered. The pathways between the vegetable patches were hard dry ground that they regularly swept with a grass garden broom.

We would leave carrying the fruit of their labour. I used to love the fresh figs on their fig tree and if I close my eyes I can still imagine walking through their garden… I am so happy they found one another in their old age so that they could have companionship.

I miss my Oumatjie so much on days like today and would love to turn time back with an adult mind in a child’s body and look at her again. Smell her scent, feel her large love that she had in her heart for me and look into her kind brown eyes and ask her how she felt – sit in deep conversation with her and tell her how much I loved her then and love her still. Be less focused on me.

My Oumatjie left me an inheritance that cannot be measured in monetary terms but is more valuable and precious than gold. She loved God and set an example for me kneeling beside her bed every night and bringing each one of us by name to our Heavenly Father.

I would have loved to wish her Happy 118th Birthday today,
my Oumatjie, and snuggle into the smell of 4711, her signature scent.
My comfort while growing up after her daughter died.
My much loved Mommy.

Happy 118th Birthday my Oumatjie

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Brenda.ps23©