The story of my father

Today I went to the University of Johannesburg (UJ) to collect my student card. I am a Masters candidate this year. Class of 2026, baby! I’m doing an Mcom in Strategic Management and because I’m doing it part time it will be over two years instead of one. Which I’m completely fine with. I’m in no rush.

I did my undergrad at UJ and today was the first time I was back on campus since my graduation in 2014.

My time at UJ was not a great time. In Jan of the year I started university I was diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis. A disease the doctors made clear was incurable. One doctor even told me that I wouldn’t make it to 30 unless I got a liver transplant.

I started school battling that illness but my father was determined to make me get through school. I was receiving my treatment from Charlotte Maxeke hospital because we didn’t have medical aid then. Every month I needed to go for a check up and get a refill of my meds. My dad came for every check up while also pushing me to study hard.

What my poor parents didn’t realise then was that their baby girl slipped into depression which would go undiagnosed for 7yrs until I had a complete breakdown that would land me in hospital in 2016. Anyway, back to my time at UJ.

That illness made me feel tired all the time and also itchy, dizzy and nauseous at random times and therefore I had no social life. I had terrible jaundice and didn’t like how people stared at me whenever they saw me. My life consisted of school and home. I would even sometimes leave school early to go lie down at home.

It was hard. I struggled with my degree because of my barely there mental health. But back then I didn’t know what I was struggling with was depression. Add to that I never wanted to study Accounting to begin with and yea, varsity felt like trying to summit mount Everest barefoot for me.

I was academically excluded twice and each time my dad forced me to appeal even though I did not want to. I took being academically excluded as a sign that I had no business doing Accounting. But my father was not having it. I was either going to die or be an Accountant. There was no in-between.

I eventually got my 3yr degree after 5 whole years at UJ! Having had been a top student all through Primary School and High School, I struggled with my experience at UJ. I only started making sense of it when I began therapy in 2016 after the complete breakdown. Older Sanele understands now what an uphill battle that truly was for me. But I made it. Blood, sweat, tears- I made it!

Resilience is at my core. It took an unimaginable level of resilience to survive what my mind was battling with. In the year that I was supposed to finish my degree, in year 4, I just couldn’t get out of bed to go write my exams. I felt pinned down to my bed. I must have stayed in bed for two weeks. Waking up to use the bathroom, eat a small meal and go back to bed. Even then I didn’t know what depression was.

Anyway, it was my father’s insistence and my resilience that got me my undergrad. That man fought for my degree. I would stop talking to him for long periods of time and he wouldn’t care. He would say degree or die. Literally. We all know how that turned out. Newsflash, I didn’t die.

I have resented my father for years for forcing me to study Accounting. I STILL hate it btw. But age has helped me see that it wasn’t so much about Accounting for him as it was about securing my future. He just wanted me to be able to get a good job that would sustain me so I wouldn’t have to struggle and suffer like he did sleeping on the road as a truck driver.

I get it now. It was love and good desires for me all muddled up in this degree. I do wish however that he would have listened to me. I have always known my mind from when I was a child. Something I think my father still doesn’t realise. That I know my mind and I know exactly what I want.

I wasn’t confused as a teen. I would have thrived in Humanities. That is just how my brain is wired and more inclined. I understand Accounting as a subject and in practice but I don’t think it’s for Sanele at her core. Sanele is NOT an accountant. This work bores me to death. But I get what he was trying to do. He didn’t mean harm by it even though it did harm me- hello major depression!

For a long time I tried to leave Accounting but I felt like the only other thing I could do was Admin work. Well, you think Accounting is boring until you have to do Admin work. Goodness. I would rather pull my hair out one strand at a time than do Admin work. So back to Accounting I went and hated it even more.

I remember during the time I was unemployed in 2022 I was working with a life coach to help me figure out my next steps. I’d quit my accounting job without a plan. Then when I was interviewing for my current role I felt so out of my depth. I asked the coach to help me prepare for my next interview as I was straight up freaking out. I wanted the job but I didn’t feel qualified for it. Even though I knew that it wouldn’t be on my path unless I was ready for it.

The coach and I worked together and she pointed that mine wasn’t a capability issue but a confidence issue. I was capable but had no faith in my capabilities mostly due to my experience at UJ. So we did work to address that specifically. Of course I went and got the job which I’m still in now.

However I realised that despite the niceness of my current work situation, I still don’t enjoy Accounting. So that’s when I started thinking of plan b. However this time because I had worked on my confidence I did not see admin work as an option- which is how I came to the decision to apply for a Masters program. I figured I’d qualify for a mentally stimulating job with a Masters than I would working in Admin. And so I applied.

Oh I have been trying to leave Accounting. I hold a postgrad diploma in Business Administration which I completed in 2019. Originally my plan was to do that then proceed to do an MBA however I couldn’t afford an MBA and had no funding so I kinda got stuck. Well until last year.

I literally went on Google and googled Finance Masters programs which is how I found this qualification I’m doing now. A friend I find truly inspiring had just graduated with the same degree in the UK so I took that as my sign to do it.

All this to day I would not be here today had my father not fought for my education back then. I was on a bursary and would have lost the bursary if I changed courses. Also the life I have now has been funded by my education which I wouldn’t have if I had it my way.

I still hate Accounting and still believe it’s not for me but I appreciate the thoughts behind my father forcing me to do it. I am not a victim of my circumstances. I am not tied to a tree like a dog which is why I’ve decided to exercise my freedom and do something to change my circumstances.

Yes, I studied Accounting but no one is forcing me to stay in it now. I am an adult. I have choice and agency I can do literally whatever I want so I’m doing it.

I guess this was a long winded way of saying thank you to my father. I am building on a foundation he laid for me. I understand he had an absent father and his mother died when he was young so he had no example. He was literally winging it with his kids and from his humble beginnings he produced two graduates- my brother and I. When we were in university there isn’t anything he didn’t do for us with the little he had to ensure our comfort so we could 100% focus on our studies.

I’m sorry that I did not see the value of what he was trying to do back then and so we just always fought. But he stuck it through and remained firm in his role as my father and not my friend. I like to say teenagers are wild animals and trust me, when it came to university I was also a wild animal. I needed an adult to be firm with me and truly rein me in. Which my father did with no example.

I felt very emotional today walking that campus knowing that while my father has never sat in a university class, the arrow from his bow is now a Masters candidate. Ain’t that a thing?!

I haven’t spoken to my father in almost a year now because we just don’t see eye to eye but man, he did me a solid! I have wrestled with these conflicting emotions towards him, not knowing what to make of them but today I acknowledge that two things can be true at once. He fought for my education but he also dysregulates my nervous system which is why I’ve put some distance between us.

However who he is now does not take away from what he did for me. I am so grateful. “No one person is one thing,” someone used to say. And that is true of my father. He is many things I don’t always have the language to describe but he fought for my future!!

Whenever I see teens who don’t want to go school I wish they’d have a chat with my father. There are many adults and teens now who could do with a father like mine. That man has foresight you hear me. He saw into the future long before I’d stop to ponder what actually the future was about. When he was saying degree or die it was a bit militant but that’s exactly what I needed to secure my future.

I was sad that even with all that he still didn’t teach me how to be good with money but then again, who taught him how to handle money? Nobody that’s who. This man had no example. He was winging it and going by his brilliant imagination.

Where he worked as a truck driver they had a policy that said if a driver died while still in the employ of that company they would hire the deceased’s son to replace them. He always used to say he would rise from his grave if his son ever became a truck driver! And sure enough my brother is a software engineer and not a truck driver.

Of all my siblings I am most like my father in personality. I think that’s why him and I clash so much. We are the same person in two different bodies. Also through my seeking healing for all the trauma in my body I have learnt that I was securely attached to my father as a baby and not my mother. My father is who taught me what love must feel like when I was a baby.

My essence is love and it was love so freely given by a father to his little girl that formed that in me. I anxiously attached to my mom but securely attached to my dad. It is that love little Sanele received from her daddy that still guides her today to know what is love and what isn’t.

I always feel like my father was meant to be my dad. So much of who I am has been shaped by being his child. He possesses the same brilliance I carry in me. I’ve just been fortunate to have the opportunity to go to school. He always said he measures his success by the level of comfort his children live in. He could sleep in a truck for all his life if doing so meant we got to live comfortably.

I wish you all mad fathers like mine. My father is a mad man. However it is his madness that has gotten me here today. I am building on a foundation he laid for me. He likes to say parenting is a relay. As the parent you start the race and it is in the best interests of your children to run as fast and as best as you can to give your children an advantage.

Dude. That truck driver’s last born is a Masters candidate!! What a race well run!!!