I LOST A FRIEND THIS WEEK…
Isaac finally was able to see all of his native country: Kruger National Park Safari.
I lost a friend this week, he died peacefully in his sleep. I wasn’t there when he left us, surrounded by his loving partner Therese, and many family members. But for me, Isaac Thapedi will always be alive in a special way. He allowed me to write about his life. He recorded his memories and I transcribed them, creating a few different versions–Isaac led an amazing life.
Isaac Thapedi was born in the township of Sharpesville, South Africa during apartheid. Living in a township meant that you were basically locked in every night. Yes, the men and some women could leave during the day, bussed into cities to work for the white folks. But they had to be returned by six in the evening, bussed back, locked in, prevented from creating their own full and true lives.
Isaac once told me: “When my parents were forced to move from one township to another, it was carried out in darkness. Families, belongings were loaded on trucks and buses, driven to the new place in the depth of the night, deprived the view of their native land.”
When you think about it, the white man had his reasons. Africa is a startling beautiful place. If native peoples were allowed to see more than a crowded township or a busy city, they might fall in love with anger, revolution. They might realize even more the value of the land that had been taken from them. Isaac was a middle-aged man, an accomplished physician, before he finally went on Safari–witnessed the rolling grasslands, mountains, wildlife that can power the heart, make one eager for freedom. Tyrants disallow love of country. They fear that native peoples will fall in love with the land that is their very identity. Much better to deny them, perpetuate another form of slavery. But I’m ahead of my story.
GROWING UP, THE FROG
Isaac was the only boy in a family of eight sisters. He slept right by the stove in the living area, avoiding the female bedroom. Each morning, after consuming the porridge his mother provided, he roamed the township, often getting in trouble as there was little to do. But—there were frogs and Isaac had a pocketknife.
One day he grabbed a big one, cut open its chest, then used a metal tab from a pop-can’s flip-top to spread the skin, examine the internal organs, study the beating heart. Later, he snatched his sister’s sewing needle and thread, and taught himself how to sew up the incision, then cut and do it all over again. That was the beginning.
Later Isaac would demonstrate this skill for his fellow students during the township school’s Show and Tell. He told me he was fortunate that the frog didn’t croak. But all of it fueled his desire to understand what procedures the human body might tolerate, might benefit from. “It was very early in my life, but it set me on a path,” Isaac said. “I wanted to be seen as an individual. I knew that being educated would allow me to achieve unique goals, to stand out. I might also be able to discover and create my own life, one my hardworking parents would never know.”
ALL YOU NEED IS A MENTOR
Isaac found mentors in his teachers and the editor of a newspaper he wrote for, Hank Schneider. And he found his pathway out of apartheid through the International Institute of Education. They agreed to sponsor him, educate him in the United States. Looking back on this trajectory Issac told me: “It wasn’t until much later that I realized the program devolved down to a kind of brainwashing—I was to be a spokesperson for America’s societal ideas. But being a black man, I often found those ideas directly opposed to my welfare and my personal philosophy.”
ESCAPING APARTHEID
Isaac had to escape South Africa in the darkness of night. He wore only the clothes on his back and “…carried the blanket I had cherished as a child. It bore the power head, the insignia of my Basotho Tribe, a symbol of authority that would remind me of my Bantu heritage which I did not want to forget.”
The drive from Sharpeville to the airport was fraught with worry as the Prime Minister of South Africa had signed Isaac’s paperwork, but done so when he’d been drinking. What if he remembered? What if a guard arrested Isaac at the airport?
But the plan went through and Isaac escaped, flew through darkened skies to eventually see: “the lady, the Statue of Liberty holding her torch, arising from a haze, surrounded by vivid blue water. I’d seen her in books, knew the words printed on her base—and now here she was, letting me know I had not only arrived, but I was free. I could lose myself in the land that lay before me. Now, no one could touch me.”
SO MANY ACCOMPLISHMENTS….
Isaac studied at Yale and Northern Illinois University. One summer, he went south to help fight American apartheid by sitting at lunch counters and asking to be served. After graduating from Howard University Medical School in Washington DC, he went to Canada to do his residency and choose a medical specialty: neurosurgery. Isaac continued to excel in his specialty working first with pediatric patients and eventually concentrating on the spine and the brain.
Later in his career, Isaac fell in love with my sister-in-law Therese, one of the most amazing women I have even known, a nurse who taught me nursing skills and advised me on so many health issues.
But now Isaac has left us, dying this past week after leading an amazing life. He did go back to South Africa to visit his mother and sisters. He was even interviewed by Nelson Mandela who saw what Isaac had achieved and wanted him to return to the land of his birth. Now Isaac is finally returning, his ashes to be buried in his native land by his mother and the father he never saw again.
Isaac struck a blow to apartheid by revealing to white America what a child of an African township can achieve and what a person of color can achieve–just open the damn door. Just give him a frog and a pocket knife. Or give him freedom and the chance to pursue his dreams–he’ll go from entertaining during Show and Tell to becoming an accomplished and giving American Neurosurgeon. Rest In Peace, Isaac. And thank you for sharing the STORY OF YOUR LIFE with me.
I am currently looking for a magazine, newspaper etc, to publish the full story of Isaac’s Life.
Photo Credit: Kruger National Park; and always, thanks to Therese;
