Obituary — May Nkomazana Dulini Ncube: Unsung heroine of Zim

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Death is horrible and such a stain and blight on life. Never does it ever make any sense. It is always so illogical, so pointless and meaningless, yet so final.

Death is horrible and such a stain and blight on life. Never does it ever make any sense. It is always so illogical, so pointless and meaningless, yet so final.

BY welshmAn Ncube

When I sat with May Nkomazana Dulini Ncube, the widow of the late veteran nationalist, freedom fighter and MDC founding treasurer-general, Fletcher Dulini Ncube, in my office in Bulawayo a few weeks ago, discussing the winding-up of her late husband’s estate, which I had volunteered to be the pro bono executor of, little did I know that that was the last time I was seeing her alive.

Last year, after the death of Fletcher, I had volunteered to help in the administration of the estate and every time I went to see her she would tell me that she was not yet ready to deal with the estate as she was still not emotionally reconciled to that.

Each time I told her she should let it be until such time that she felt she wanted to do it. Only after she returned from visiting her children in the Diaspora did she come back to me to express readiness to have the estate wound up.

I recalled talking to May sometime after the passing away of Fletcher, that as humans we had become masters of inventing all sorts of false clichés to console each other about death, such as; time heals, with time the pain will go away; the grief will fade as the memory fades, etc.

As anyone who has lost a child, a sibling, a parent or a spouse knows, all these are profoundly false. Time never heals. The pain never goes away. The grief never ends. The tears never dry.

May understood all this. I always felt that in some way she felt that with Fletcher gone, her part in the story of life was done.

But who was May? Those of us who had the privilege to know her will testify that she was one of the many unsung heroines of our country. A teacher by profession. A farmer by choice. A philanthropist by love. A woman of genuine substance. Caring and loving. Trusting and fiercely loyal. Religious and of immense faith. Patient almost to a fault. Controlled and as calm as the deep ocean.

Never once in the decade and a half that I knew her did I see her lose her cool. She had such a big heart. Forgiveness came naturally to her.

In spite of the many years she was separated from Fletcher by his numerous detentions both in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe and notwithstanding the brutality visited upon her husband, more so in independent Zimbabwe, she never showed bitterness. May was perceptive and understanding. She was practical and realistic. Witty and humorous. She was courageous and tolerant.

I recall the time Fletcher was falsely accused of involvement in the murder of Cain Nkala in 2001, the police wanted to arrest him in Harare, so they could keep him in detention over the weekend. I had to drive him to Bulawayo in the middle of the night, evading and avoiding police roadblocks. We got to Bulawayo safely and the police had already been to his house in Hillside.

A friend of mine from our days at Luveve Secondary School graciously agreed to provide him with sanctuary for the weekend so that on the Monday, his lawyer, Josphat Tshuma, would arrange to surrender him to the police.

After safely dropping Fletcher at the sanctuary, I went to explain all this to May and advised her that in our view it would not be safe for her to go there and see him. She was calm, witty, unfazed and understood the situation and notwithstanding her obvious deep concern over the television news headlines implicating Fletcher in murder, not once was there any evidence of panic. We had arranged for two nondescript mobile handsets and lines for both her and Fletcher to communicate without their conversations being traced.

She was content with that and so totally supportive to Fletcher in those conversations.

When Fletcher eventually handed himself to the police, they repeatedly opposed each and every bail application that his lawyers made and the courts obliged by denying him bail again and again, notwithstanding that to many of us, it was obvious that he was not a flight risk.

With his medical conditions, he suffered severely during that unjustified detention resulting in a sharp deterioration of his health. Throughout all this, May was strong and maintained her faith, praying incessantly for her husband’s safety and health.

We worked closely with May throughout our continuing struggle for a democratic, free and prosperous Zimbabwe. Thus this obituary is not just about mourning a life lost, but the celebration of the life of this unsung heroine, who has been taken away from us so unexpectedly.

May and Fletcher were married in 1973 and had three children together. Given their trials and tribulations in the unforgiving Rhodesian and Zimbabwean political terrain, their marriage cannot be described as a fairytale. But that they were soul mates is not capable of contestation.

In the MDC family, May has been our pillar and bedrock, even after her husband had passed on at almost this exact period last year. She denied herself and her family the comfort and pleasures of association that come with being apolitical and was constantly living on the edge due to the dangers associated with opposition politics.

She was our mother, our sister, our friend and counsellor. Her Hillside home was our home.

May stood by Fletcher in good and in bad times and all this during the various periods of political tumult. She was his and our strength during some very difficult days in our party’s history. Her commitment to the democratisation of Zimbabwe was refreshing. She is one of those people whose names are not interred anywhere in the annals of the history of this country, yet have played immeasurable roles in ensuring that Zimbabwe is where it is today.

Lala ngoxolo lokuthula, qhawe lamaqhawe

May Nkomazana Dulini Ncube was born on May 15, 1948 and passed away on November 20, 2015.