A few people have asked me about my life story and how I survived it so far, so I thought that I would share some of my story and do it in a two or three-part series. I will obviously not be sharing my full story as that would be like writing a book all on its own but if I see a lot of demand for it, then I will most likely write the book one day after I finish my Serendipity series, but I must be honest, I never really think that people would be interested in reading a story of my life, but people apparently like to read testimonials of other people that have survived this life thing.
I had an interesting childhood and one that would take way too long to tell you about, but it wasn’t a bad childhood. I have to be honest, I don’t remember a whole lot of my childhood and mostly remember certain bad things that happened, but I do know that I love my mom very much and I was very protective over my family (still am though).
I got married at 20 turning 21 which is way too young to get married and of course, I married a person that did not really suit me. I did get two beautiful children out of almost 13 years of marriage I had with him. We fought quite a lot and anger ran high for most of our marriage. He tried to change me to be someone less weird and I did not appreciate that at all. I started spiraling into depression and anger, my emotions started to resemble a fire-laced tornado and started to wipe out everything in its path. I resigned from my job at the bank in March 2006. My youngest daughter Alexis turned 3 in May 2006 and in July we found out that she had Aplastic Anemia. My floor was ripped out from beneath me! Prior to this, I was a materialistic person, but it didn’t take long after Alexis got sick to have my priorities in life change drastically. At this point, family and love became more important to me. After almost a year, Alexis started getting better and they removed her Hickman line because she didn’t need to get blood and platelets as much anymore and started going into remission.
We moved to Bredasdorp and things went bad again. I was taken away from my mom and family. I picked up all the weight I had lost and started feeling like an atomic bomb that was ready to explode…never a good thing. Alexis’ illness then chose to reoccur again and I had to start taking her to the hospital again. I had to take her to the hospital in Hermanus weekly for blood and platelets and then once a month I had to take her to the Red Cross Children’s Hospital to see the specialist. This was a hard time for both Alexis and I as I had to watch my poor little baby girl suffer through this illness. Because she didn’t have her Hickman line anymore, they had to actually prick her every week and put a drip in and she didn’t really cry and scream but begged me not to let them hurt her. My heart broke every time.
I had already turned to God not long after we had moved to the town and I started getting closer and closer to Him. I ended up in the music team at the church and was integrated into certain aspects of the church. We also became friends with the Pastor and his wife (who later became one of my best friends). All of this seemed to calm the storm that I had raging inside of me. I spent a lot of the time in the hospital in God’s Word and teaching Alexis about it. At home, I had already started homeschooling her because she was not allowed to go to school.
I felt like my heart was constantly broken and I didn’t know how to fix it. I hardly laughed or smiled and when I did, I felt like I was forcing myself. This was only the beginning…
My then husband and I decided to go away to his sister for the weekend and Alexis took a turn for the worse. I can tell you that at no point did I ever think that she would die, it didn’t even pass my mind…ever! I strongly believed that she was going to be healed because so many things had happened that made us think that. On the 6th of September 2009, we were rushing on our way back from Vredendal and she died in my arms in the car not far from my in-law’s house. Now, I can’t even explain to you the emotions I went through at this point, but while I lay half in the road, holding her head and begging her to come back to me and knowing she wasn’t going to, I wanted to die with her at this point and man other points after that. I even tried about a month after her death, but God had a different plan for me and all that happened was that I felt violently ill.
People told me I had to be strong for my oldest daughter and for my husband, so what did I do? I built walls around the pain to shut it out and I turned my full attention to God. If it hadn’t been for Him, I would probably not be here anymore because of how suicidal I constantly was. No one noticed, our friends pulled away from us because they didn’t know what to say to us, but luckily, I had God. I then started realising something…even in our darkest hour, He had been there to help us.
When Alexis passed away, we didn’t know where we were or how to explain to any ambulance or anything. Thankfully, the Lord was there. The first person to stop was a funeral home owner, seconds after him, a doctor stopped, a few minutes after him a small fire brigade stopped and then after that, an ambulance stopped. Everyone trying to help us cope with what had just happened. We would have been completely lost if it hadn’t been for this and I am eternally grateful to the Lord for helping us.
That’s it for Part 1 and I hope my story helps you in some way. The rest will follow soon. Please show me some love and comment below. If you enjoy what you see, please follow me for more features.
That’s it from me for now…
Enjoy the moments
Ondeane Lourens 