Now after just eight months of competing in athletics, Oscar was informed that he would be part of the South African team at the Athens 2004 Paralympics, to be held between 13 and 29 August. The world watched as Oscar was catapulted into the record books, setting a new 200-metre world record in the T44 class of 21:97 and winning a bronze in the highly contested 100 metres. Oscar was still just 17.
When I met Oscar I was immediately intrigued by the inkings he had. In fact one of the first things I asked him was what the numbers on his inner right arm meant, “LVIII V VIII – II III VI”. He immediately closed up and then got quite emotional and told me that it was his mom’s birth date and the date that she passed away: 8 May 1958 – 6 March 2002. It was clear he didn’t want to talk about it.
The story behind the tattoo on his back has often been quoted in the media.
In 2011, while staying in a hotel in Soho in New York, late one night, he was suffering from jet lag and couldn’t sleep and so found himself wandering around the streets of New York. He walked into an all-night tattoo parlour and asked the Puerto Rican tattoo artist to ink the biblical verse from 1 Corinthians 9:26–27: “I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. I execute each strike with intent. I beat my body and make it my slave…” Apparently it took from 2am to about 8:30am. I found it hilarious when Oscar explained it was squiggly because the guy was half asleep when he did it. It was one of the stories he loved to tell.
After the Athens Olympics, he dedicated all his subsequent victories to his mother. Her words of encouragement became his inner mantra.
In some ways I began to take on some kind of maternal replacement role during the Olympics in 2012, when most of my letters and emails to him were filled with words of encouragement and meditations to inspire and encourage him out of the dark space he was in.
Soon after Oscar came into our lives, I had a dream one night that his mom wanted to tell me something. It felt really urgent, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. It seemed to go on and on but it never felt any clearer. I remember waking up and feeling disturbed by it, the way only dreams can make you feel. When I told Oscar about the dream I described the woman in my dreams to him – she had long dark hair and was wearing denim shorts. Then he showed me the pic of his mom on his phone – the picture he carried around with him. It was amazing how similar the woman in my dream was to the photograph. We hardly ever spoke of her again.
There was so much about Oscar that we didn’t know about, which was hidden. I was really surprised, for instance, when I read in Blade Runner that his mom had remarried after her divorce from his father – he never mentioned that to me, which I did find odd.
I also sensed that he had elevated his mom to an almost saintly space in his psyche.
In press and television interviews he invariably referred to the influence his mother had had on his life and outlook. At the high-profile London Olympics press conferences, he often described his mom as: “very cool; a very hectic, free spirit. She didn’t really comply with much and had a very carefree approach to life.” And: “She didn’t take anything too seriously. She wrote us hundreds of letters and taught us hundreds of things and never made decisions for us.”
After making history as the first double amputee to compete in the Olympic Games in London in 2012, and after qualifying for the semi-finals of the 400 metres, he paid tribute to his mother, again.
“I thought about my mother a lot today. She was a bit of a hard-core person. She didn’t take no for an answer.”
I often wondered what effect her untimely and shocking death had on him and his future relationships.
One morning in early 2012 when I got up pre-dawn at some ungodly hour, I saw Oscar standing on our landing and staring out the window into thin air.
He looked so alone, such a sad, solitary figure. Every part of me just wanted to move closer and give him a hug. But he seemed so far away, so closed off and unapproachable, so I refrained. It was almost as if he were bionic, a machine who came from some other planet. He always seemed to be working so damn hard at being “normal” and making sure that everything looked “right”. I thought that if I approached and hugged him, by engaging in such a simple human gesture, I would disempower him. So I chose not to follow my impulse.
We went downstairs instead and shared a cup of coffee. This was some time before the Olympics.
Months later, in one of his many distressed phone calls to me – when he was sobbing uncontrollably and desperately unhappy in September 2012 – I told him how on that day I had wanted to give him a big hug, to make him feel better. He seemed genuinely moved and asked me why I hadn’t, and said that he wished I had.
I tried to explain to him how difficult it had felt on that early morning to reach out to him. That he had seemed so impenetrable that it had been impossible for me to fulfil the gesture. I explained to him that it was very difficult, as a mother who was used to looking after everyone and making sure that everyone was okay, to do the same with him. I told him that while he was working so hard at not being vulnerable and making everyone think that all was in order in his world, he was really robbing himself of love. And that if he was honest with himself, he would be able to admit that all he really wanted, what he craved, was for people to love and care for him. That, after all was said and done, all he wanted was a family. And that, I suppose, is where we willingly came into the picture.
CHAPTER 5
Looking for a Surrogate Family
* * *
On one level I think Oscar really thrived in our large and robust family.
I understood his need to belong all too well. Since my own parents had divorced when I was a child, I felt we had something in common and I could empathise with him. The thing is, in all the time that Oscar was a part of our lives, he never let on that his parents’ divorce had affected him in any negative way. But his silence around the subject probably said much more than words.
What he did mention a couple of times was that he had had absolutely no communication with his dad for years, although he never elaborated on the reason why.
But seeing him relaxing and laughing at family events, bonding with my kids – especially the boys – and watching sport on TV together, brought joy to my heart and helped me to understand just how much he enjoyed being a part of our family unit.
The one thing I noticed quite early on, after meeting him back in mid-2011, was that he had the air of a child who had had to fend for himself early on in life. I think this had a lot to do with the divorce but it also had to do with the way his father taught Carl and Oscar to be tough and never complain. In Blade Runner Oscar tells how the words “I can’t” were forbidden in the Pistorius household.
But there were times, when he wasn’t aware that I was watching, that I sometimes caught a glimpse of a very lost and lonely soul. Despite all his success and the vast material things he had, I had a sense that deep within he was filled with a kind of pain that was hard to fix.
I have often wondered why I felt such a strong urge to mother him. Maybe it was because I instinctively knew about the hole in his soul, despite his determined bravado.
But then, I suppose, ever since I can remember, being maternal has been a very central aspect of my identity. Even as a little girl I was mothering anything and everything in sight. I could never resist holding babies, or playing with little kids.
But when it was time to have children, I had to endure a long period of sadness and disappointment before my children were born, making them doubly precious to me. When I was just 25, and already married for three years to my husband, Henry, I experienced real loss for the first time in my life. Intent on starting a much-longed-for family, and halfway through my first pregnancy, I inexplicably miscarried. What had been a simple routine checkup and scan with the doctor became one of the most shocking days of my life when the doctor discovered our baby had no heartbeat.
I was consumed by a huge numbing grief. We asked
no questions at the time and we were told nothing. I never knew if I had lost a little boy or a girl.
But the pain didn’t stop there. The emotional roller coaster continued for the next four years, during which I lost a total of five unborn babies. The joy and excitement of falling pregnant and the devastation of losing baby after baby was indescribably hard to bear. Each loss became more painful and devastating than the previous one.
At a point of total devastation, we finally decided to adopt and successfully went through the whole lengthy legal process of qualifying to be adoptive parents.
But then, out of the blue, I unexpectedly fell pregnant again and, this time, managed to carry the baby full term. Finally, seven years into our marriage, our first child, our baby daughter Kerri–Lee, was born in April. After she was born, all my difficulties with having children suddenly seemed to disappear.
Our next three children, Tyron, Samantha and Greg, would all be born over the next five years.
I now had my perfect pack of dream children. Who would have believed that after losing six babies, after all that heartache and believing I would never hold my own child, we now had four!
I have never forgotten those years of loss and the anxiety that I would never hold a child of my own. I still retain the scars of what I lost and the feelings of utter gratitude for what I have today. And I know that I will carry them forever. Over time, the memory of those sad years has reinforced my impulse to mother.
With Oscar, there were times that you had to be very careful not to let him know that you could see his carefully hidden vulnerabilities and his neediness. Most of the time he liked to give the impression that he had everything under control and that he was more than okay. (There were other times, of course, when the carefully walled-off emotions broke through the barriers and floods of grief and pain would threaten to drown everything in sight.)
I have seen that extreme control in kids who have been to boarding school or who have come from broken homes, whether due to divorce or the death of a parent.
When Oscar was ready for high school, I am sure his mother would probably have wanted him to stay at home, but for some reason I am not aware of, she agreed to let him go to boarding school. In his book Blade Runner, a whole chapter is dedicated to attending Pretoria Boys High School (a well-known English boarding school, established in 1901). He enrolled as a boarder for the five years of high school. Although a highly respected institution, Boys High used to be well known for its controversial initiation practices, according to some past pupils. While my kids were being tended to and nurtured daily, Oscar was having to cope in a very challenging macho environment. There was no quarter given to those who were judged to be “sissies” or who showed vulnerability and emotion, let alone who cried.
There were no allowances or special treatments for Oscar due to his disability; in fact, if anything, the fact he wore prosthetics made things even more difficult for him. Despite trying to make light of “schoolboy” pranks in the book Blade Runner, one incident he endured at school always strikes me as particularly sadistic.
In his first year of high school he awoke one night to see the dormitory in flames. Reaching for the foot of his bed where he had left his prosthesis, he discovered to his horror they were missing. With flames engulfing the room and boys scrambling to get out, Oscar began to panic badly, as he was unable to escape what seemed to be a life-threatening situation. Suddenly, the flames disappeared and his peers came running into the room, laughing. They had doused the steel cupboards with lighter fuel and hidden Oscar’s legs as a joke to “welcome” him. Incidents like these were common practice in this all-boys’ school. Oscar was a particularly vulnerable and easy target.
Losing his mother at 15, and estranged from his disciplinarian dad, Henke, while still a teenager, he chose to live on his own after he finished high school. Despite his determination to be independent, he must nonetheless have felt very isolated at a tender age. He must also have found it very difficult to trust people as a result of all these losses and changes.
While he spoke fondly of his brother Carl, their relationship was not without its ups and downs. Although there had been a time after their mother’s death when they had not been in communication, by the time we met Oscar they had grown extremely close once again. Carl had become quite religious and was a good support system and mentor for his younger brother. Sammy spoke fondly of Carl, and experienced him as friendly and kind on the few occasions that they interacted.
Aimee, three years younger than Oscar, acted like an older sister or even like his mother – she regularly helped him pack for his trips, kept track of his diary and even made his hair appointments for him. On a few occasions he told us how emotional Aimee was and that she would often burst into tears. She was only 13 when their mom died and was very affected by the tragedy. Sammy and Aimee got on well but never became very close. Oscar often spoke about how particular he was about the men Aimee dated and that he was always concerned that they treated her with respect. “That is the way women should be treated,” he always said. Ironically, while he was very overprotective of his sister, he appeared to treat women the way he didn’t want men to treat her.
Whereas our family saw each other all the time, Oscar saw his siblings pretty infrequently due to the fact that he travelled so much. I think the time he spent away made him feel isolated and he often told me how hard it was coming back after long periods of time spent away and trying to reintegrate himself back into a social life that had carried on for everyone else.
On one of the occasions that Sammy met Oscar’s siblings, Carl invited her to join him and Aimee for dinner at Oscar’s beautiful home for the anniversary of their mom’s birthday, 8 May.
Sammy told me how Oscar and his siblings were very emotional that evening. They all sat outside and had a lovely dinner. She told me later how welcome she felt that night. But I don’t remember them ever getting together as a family again until they joined him in London in August.
After relocating from the rat race in Joburg, our new home in Somerset West was a perfect place for Oscar to escape to. Built on an eco-estate, it’s set against the backdrop of a mountain range with a dam lapping at the edge of the house. Opening onto a view of the sea, there is amazing beauty everywhere one looks. It’s like a piece of paradise. We have little buck roaming around and our garden path leads straight down to the water, to a log garden where we often sit and have dinner, watching the ducks and the fishermen.
Sam and I often run on the beach in the mornings. The kids take the dogs for walks up onto our mountain or onto the beach – it’s a fantastic life.
But, perhaps best of all, we get to watch the sunsets. Every single evening they are different and more and more beautiful; every night God paints this amazing picture just for us to warm our souls.
It was here that Oscar was able to leave behind and forget all the pressures and expectations of the outside world and relax in our home and make himself comfortable. He got on well with all of us, especially our other children, Kerri-Lee, Ty and Greg and my husband, Henry.
I run an open house, bursting at the seams on weekends with young people who often call and visit when they need a “mom”. I love cooking and feeding everyone, too. Our youngest son Greg often tells people, “My mom would have had 10 children”, and I always say that no, I would have stopped after four. But actually, when I look at all the kids congregating in our home, I realise that I have “adopted” many more.
So, just as with all the other kids who flocked to our new home, Oscar was welcomed into this big happy family with open arms.
CHAPTER 6
Fallout
* * *
On a certain level, even though Oscar seemed to thrive in our family, I can imagine that all our closeness might have been almost too much for him to handle, pushing certain buttons that created deep feelings of inadequacies and resentment.
I think while outwardly he bonded with us and he experienced real happiness being
part of the family, he also confessed a number of times that he sometimes felt “envious” of the family and the closeness we enjoyed. And he admitted to us that there was something inside him that made him do stupid, self-destructive things, especially when everything was going well. In fact, he confessed to me a number of times his own self-sabotaging patterns both in emails and phone calls.
An incident in spring 2012 illustrates how Oscar’s perplexing behaviour could ruin an otherwise happy family gathering. Sammy and Oscar had been going out for about eight months at this stage, so we were all pretty relaxed with each other by then. It was Greg’s 16th birthday, which we were celebrating during the weekend of 29 April 2012, just a few weeks before Oscar left for Europe to start serious training for the London Olympics. From the moment Oscar arrived that Friday in Somerset West, it was clear that he was tired.
I knew he was under a lot of pressure because of the Olympics, but I also sensed he might be in one of his black moods, so I tried to keep things upbeat. We had decided to go out for dinner all together to start the weekend celebrations but he said he didn’t want to because he was too tired and couldn’t handle being seen in public. I had become quite used to that excuse from Oscar, which he used quite regularly. On one level I understood it, but I also found it strange as he was quite comfortable being out in public when it suited him, like going out with friends ’til all hours of the night in highly public places like clubs and restaurants.
So we ordered sushi in, his mood eased up, and as the night progressed, he got more relaxed and we ended up having a lovely dinner and a joy-filled evening. We spent time watching all his ads and clips on YouTube – there was one particular snippet filmed at Pretoria Boys High that I really loved.
Oscar: An Accident Waiting to Happen Page 4