Reeva: A Mother's Story Read Online Free Page A

clothes suitable for a courtroom, were it not for the loss of my daughter. I had to try so hard not to cry because she was the reason I was there – but she was not there. I felt that acute sense of absence most when I went to Johannesburg or Pretoria. I’d only ever flown to Johannesburg to stay with Reeva. It was all horrific, but I had to be there for Reeva. People respected that. They said wonderful things to me. ‘You’re so strong,’ they said. But I wasn’t and I’m not. I’ve already collapsed a few times. It’s as if I’m in purgatory. Sometimes I’m feel as if I’m going mad with it all. I had to consult a counsellor. I ended up crying and crying, but until the trial was over, I was determined to hold it in.

We printed a beautiful photograph of Reeva with her dates, 1983–2013, to pin on our jacket lapels and stick on the back of our court passes. That way Reeva would come to court with us every day. I had to think through what clothes I could wear to be respectful of the judge and the court – a smart black blazer, crisp white shirt and black trousers. I would wear the pearl necklace that Reeva saved up her pocket money and bought for me from her teacher’s jewellery shop when she was twelve and an amethyst ring I gave her for her twenty-seventh birthday.

We went for one day, as Dup had suggested before the proceedings began. Monday 3 March was a miserable, rainy day. During the fifteen-minute drive from the guest house to the modern red-brick and stone High Court building in Madiba Street, I had to steel myself to attend this necessary judicial process on Reeva’s behalf. My stomach was in knots. My heart was beating too quickly. I felt terribly on edge. The pouring rain had not deterred the media, who had encamped along the pavements flanking the High Court entrance to bring their audiences up-to-the-minute coverage of ‘the Trial of the Century’. I walked through the tunnel of photographers and cameramen just trying to look where I was going and not trip over the tangle of cables that lay across the pavement. My steps through the gate and down towards the door that would lead us to Court Room GD confirmed the finality of my daughter’s tragic end, leading me to the official process that would bring the man responsible for her death to justice – we hoped. It was difficult to bear, especially with the media frenzy on top of that. I hadn’t anticipated the noise and claustrophobic presence of cameras, lenses, reporters, microphones, generators whirring on the pavements, people shouting: ‘June, how are you feeling?’ ‘June, over here!’ They were shouting my first name. It seemed so rude. I was on show. If I broke down or cried, everyone was watching me.

Even before I flew to Pretoria, I had had to adapt to this new lack of privacy. Regardless how I might try to go about my daily business and errands quietly, everyone recognises me. I’ve been in their sitting rooms on the TV coverage. People think they know me. Most of them want to hug me. And you can’t refuse love, can you? It shows they care. Or worse, they stop me and think they know me… from somewhere, but where? Can I hang on a minute while they work it out? I say quietly, ‘I’m Reeva’s mum.’

Present tense. I will always be Reeva’s mum.

As I took my seat on the right-hand side of the front row bench that has been reserved with a placard for the Steenkamp family (the other side was reserved for the Pistorius clan), I knew what happened over the forecast three weeks would be difficult to sit through, but I took comfort from the fact that it would be a necessary evil that would help determine the truth of what happened to my child. It was so important I was there. It was important for him to know that I was there, that Reeva’s mother, who gave birth to her and loved her, was there for her. This wasn’t about the ‘slain model’ of the headlines. This wasn’t about ‘Oscar Pistorius’s girlfriend’. This was,