Monastery of judgeship :: Mmegi Online

I must begin my farewell speech by thanking my family and friends for organising this farewell event; and to thank you all for coming. All of you, in varying degrees, have made me who I am. All of you, in the cause of my life journey, have supported me in the best and worst of times. You are all valued in equal measure. If it were possible to go round and kiss and hug all of you, as may be appropriate, I will do so enthusiastically and without hesitation.

I have been lucky to have such loving family, relatives and friends. My friend Eddie Mdluli last week crafted a piece in which he lionised me – coming very close to conferring me with judicial sainthood! Thank you Eddie. You are such a sweet soul. I am just anxious whether after my permanent recall from this world, if you are lucky to be around then, you will still write the same piece, or you will revise it to suggest that somewhere along the way I betrayed! The tragedy is that I will never know!!

I am particularly happy that amongst you today are my secondary school teachers, Methaetsile Leepile and Keineetse Keineetse who taught me English Literature, traversing such books as Macbeth by William Shakespeare and Cry the Beloved Country, by Allan Parton. One of them was fascinated by Lady Macbeth and we nick named him Lady Macbeth; Strangely, Keineetse Keineetse, a frequent visitor at our dormitories, we didn’t call him Absalom Khumalo or Reverend Msimangu, one of the characters, in Cry the Beloved Country but just, “Comrade”.

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