“You are loved and you know that … people keep telling me you’re at peace now and I hope that one day I’ll believe it. Rest well.”
This was the tribute from Reitumetse “Tumi” Kabi’s close friend Liso Ledingwane (21), at her memorial service which was held on Tuesday evening at the Stellenbosch University (SU) museum.
Ledingwane, a final year BSc Computer Science student continued, holding back tears: “I’ve been thinking about what I was doing while you were alone in that room. How I was walking, talking, laughing and sleeping.”
Kabi passed away two weeks ago and will be buried in her home town of Maseru, Lesotho this weekend.
Liso Ledingwane expressed how she is still battling to come to terms with the loss of Kabi. Photo: Kamva Somdyala
In attendance at the memorial were representatives from the Transformation Office, Pieter Kloppers from the Centre for Student Communities and Chair of Social Justice at the Law faculty, Advocate Thuli Madonsela.
It was Kabi’s friends however, who were given a platform to speak.
“I have sadly lost a friend to depression and throughout her cry for help, I will admit that there were times when I just asked her to hold on, but I didn’t offer to help her to hold on,” says Entse Masenya (21), a BEd second year student and close friend of Kabi.
“She was a pillar of strength to all of our friends,” continued Masenya. “There are a lot of questions right now. What did we [as friends] do wrong, what did we do right? There’s quite a lot of anger. I’m in the healing process right now.”
Madonsela did take to the podium to address the audience saying “don’t feel down about letting Tumi down. At any given point in our lives, we do the best we can.”
Rector and Vice-Chancellor Prof. Wim de Villiers, in a student notice said, while conveying his condolences, “I am very concerned about the complexities in our students’ lives that may cause them to feel hopeless and experience living as painful.
“This tragedy should spur us on to support one another as a community and to work even harder in the pursuit of wellness so we may all flourish.”
Madonsela echoed these sentiments, saying “the university is a community. Let us know if you’re struggling.”
Mokgeseng Ramaisa told the audience that when he first crossed paths with Kabi, they were both happy to see “someone who spoke SeSotho”. Photo: Kamva Somdyala
Mokgeseng Ramaisa (21), a BCom Mathematical Statistics student who is currently in his third year and was both friends and classmates with Kabi talked of his friend as a “fighter”.
And to remember Kabi, Ramaisa says going forward he would like to honour Kabi in the work he is going to do, particularly now that he’s a member of the Economics & Management Sciences faculty board.
“Also, I’d like to make sure that I put a smile on people’s faces because that’s who she was and as I said earlier, her full name, Reitumetse means ‘we are happy’ and that’s the light I’d like to give to the world from today on.”
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