My mother and Mrs Hattingh’s husband were colleagues at the Bloemfontein Teachers College, after my mother resigned from Oranje Girls School. Mrs Hattingh, whom I called Juffrou Susan, also taught the piano to my sisters Marisa and the youngest, Zettie. I’d often listen to them at home and sing la, la, la when they were struggling while practising a piece.
Eventually I asked my mother whether I could also learn to play the piano. Mrs Hattingh agreed: “Bring her along; let’s see how it goes.”
I was so excited. She taught me the names of the notes; I really liked the sound of the black ones. It was one of the happiest moments when I learned to play a piece with an F-sharp. And later a G-sharp. And a B-flat.
Every member of our family, except my dad, could now play the piano. But then he told my mother that he’d always wanted to learn to play. He also wanted lessons!
So he went, too. Mrs Hattingh commented that she knew what all the Brynard hands looked like. My two sisters’ hands were made to play the piano. Mine were small. Like my feet. And Jerry Brynard had the biggest and hairiest hands of anyone she’d ever taught.
But my dad did not practise enough.
Mrs Hattingh was friendly and funny and very pretty. She loved everyone, her husband and two daughters and one son. But she had one peculiarity. She was terrified of driving. She did not want to learn to drive.
After a while she entered me for an item in the eisteddfod. But not my dad!
Much later, my mother told me, my dear teacher was more stressed about the eisteddfod than I was. She wasn’t stressed about the symbol I’d get; she just wanted me to be okay, because it is quite something to perform on stage at the Odeion School of Music.
Juffrou Susan told me to sit down on the piano stool and look at the adjudicators. As soon as the chief adjudicator nodded, I should place my hands on the keys and take a deep breath. The music I was about to play should then begin to sound in my head. While exhaling slowly, I should start playing. I should only think about the beautiful music, and what a wonderful experience it was to play such beautiful music.
Since then, whenever I had to do something new, I would follow those instructions carefully. It calmed me down. I didn’t chew my nails and I didn’t stress.
When I’d finished playing my piece, the audience gave me a long standing ovation, including the chief adjudicator, who even cried a little!
All the adjudicators were writing like mad, and eventually it was announced that I had been awarded an A+. My mother cried, and while she was wiping away her tears, I saw that one of her nails was bitten quite badly. And we were never allowed to do that!
One morning Mrs Hattingh went to have coffee with one of her daughters at Oliewenhuis, across the road from Oranje Girls’ School. Her daughter, who taught music at the school, had a free period. As they were walking back, a car came speeding down the road and hit her mother, my dear teacher.
When my mother told me about the accident that afternoon after college, I was heartbroken.
That evening I prayed very hard, and I knew that I wanted to visit my teacher every day in hospital. She was in ICU.
Only one visitor at a time was allowed to visit a patient in ICU.
My mother always went with me, but she waited outside while I went in to be with my dear Juffrou Susan.
I did not know what to do. I just stood there and loved her and wished that she’d get better. The machines and pipes and drips and bags attached to the bed and the smell of the disinfectants did not scare me, and there were zigzag patterns on TV screens.
I did not know what to do. I didn’t want her to die. Her lips were dry, I wanted to do something, but I knew it wasn’t a good idea to touch such a heavily bandaged person. From the expression on the nurse’s face, I realised that my teacher might die.
Sometimes I felt that I wanted to pray for her. Then I did. Very softly; I was talking to God.
One evening felt different. When I left her room, I told my mother that I’d said goodbye. We did not have to come again. Juffrou Susan died that night.
Her funeral was the saddest day I’d experienced up until then. The minister said she was with Jesus, and that she lived and was happy. And that one day we would see her again. Heaven sounded like it did in the Bible, but very far away.
I knew that I’d never want to take piano lessons with anyone else. And I never did. I’ve had my piano time with my dear teacher.
I enjoyed it and it was so beautiful. It was enough for me.
My mother
I dread the day that my mother dies. Every year she allows me to do more and more on my own, and I like that. But I don’t want to live without her.
My mother means the world to me. She is – mostly – patient, really loving and always supportive. She doesn’t push me to perform, and everything I achieve is a bonus for her. When I struggle with my weight because of eating the wrong things, she is very strict and confiscates my television remote so that I cannot watch my favourite soapies or even record them. But when I take control and eat wisely, my mom is proud of me.
So, if someone has a child with Down Syndrome, that mother should not feel sorry for the child and allow him or her to eat the wrong things. She must teach the child to eat the right food, even when she is not there.
Sometimes when a mother is pregnant with a baby who has Down Syndrome, she chooses to have an abortion, or after the child is born she decides to put it into an institution.
My take on this is: as people with Down Syndrome, we have a right to live. I feel like crying when I think about the little babies like me who are not given the right to live. We can live full lives and we can make a difference in the lives of others. I am very glad that my mother gave me such a chance. I’m also glad about all the opportunities I’ve had. The President’s Award that I received in Johannesburg from the Hamlet Foundation for people with disabilities is very dear to me, because I was honoured as the person who has done most for people with intellectual disabilities in South Africa. It made me realise that any person can make a difference, even those who are not as clever as others.
So, to every mother with a Down Syndrome child I’d like to say: do not throw away your child or kill it before it has been born. We are loveable children, even though we can be headstrong – extremely so, according to my mother! Do not give up hope too easily. Miss Spies, who was the principal of Oranje Girls School when I was born, advised my mother to raise me like any normal child. The child must be taught to fit in with society and not do silly things. The child must be taught to obey the rules at home. It is the only way for us to become socially acceptable.
Whenever I achieve something, my mother is just as happy as I am. When wonderful things happen to me, like when I had a role in the TV series Binnelanders, she is very proud of me.
My mother always makes time for me. I sometimes feel bad about this because I know just how busy she is. I am so grateful that I have such a friendly and loving mother because my mom is also sort of my secretary. When someone asks me to be a guest speaker, she checks her diary. If she has a day open, she enters my appointment.
We do almost everything together. When I have my hair washed and blow-dried on a Friday, she is there, and she joins me when I go for a manicure. I like to watch her kind of films with her, as long as they don’t have subtitles. Sometimes she watches a film of her choice and I go to one that I prefer. Afterwards we meet for coffee and discuss the films.
My mom makes sure that we have enough to eat and that I have nice clothes and shoes. I really battle to find shoes, because I wear a size one or two. Some days we are lucky and we find up to four pairs, but sometimes nothing.
When I address audiences as a motivational speaker, my mother’s tears start rolling. It was quite bad in New York. She was so stressed that she couldn’t take any photographs. Her hands were shaking too