Ryland Fisher

We bade farewell to my dad’s youngest and last-remaining sibling this morning (Thursday 17 December 2020). It was a fairly cold affair with short tributes inside the AME Church in Park Avenue, Mitchells Plain, while the body remained outside in the hearse.

It was the first funeral I attended since the start of the lockdown. I had refused to attend previous funerals, even of close comrades and friends, since the start of the pandemic – and was hesitant about this one – but, in the end, I could not let Rachel Wilhemina Miller (née Fisher) leave this earth without saying my final goodbyes. Also, her death signalled the end of a generation.

Auntie Rachel was born on Thursday 20 September 1945 and died on Wednesday 9 December 2020. She was 75. She had all the comorbidities that you can imagine. Apart from her age, she also suffered from high blood pressure and diabetes. Her death was attributed to COVID-19.

Her funeral has shown me the reality of COVID-19. It comes in a week when so many people I know have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and a dear friend, Debbie Michels, died after testing positive.

According to her husband, Uncle Norman Miller, Auntie Rachel had died quickly after her condition began to deteriorate. The family had to go into quarantine and, as a result, was only able to begin arranging the funeral on Monday.

All those who attended – and the numbers were restricted – had to give their names, addresses and contact details beforehand. In the end, there were probably only about 50 people in the church.

When the hearse arrived, there were intense negotiations between family members (who wanted the body inside the church during the service), church officials and the hearse driver, who pointed out that, because it was a COVID-19 funeral, the body would not be allowed inside the church unless all the mourners, or at least the pall bearers, wore hazmat suits and other protective clothing. In the end, common sense prevailed, even though it did remove some of the intimacy of the funeral.

The only time the mourners could see the body – from a distance – was for a few minutes after the service when the rear door of the hearse was open so that people could say goodbye before the body was taken to the Klip Road cemetery in Grassy Park to be buried.

I kept on thinking about, and getting angry at, the many people who still walk around without wearing masks, without social distancing and without sanitising their hands. Unless they change their behaviour, many more families are going to have to say goodbye to their loved ones in such an impersonal manner.

No one likes wearing a mask, and no one likes having to say goodbye to a loved one under conditions where the body is not even allowed to be inside the church.

There was a fair amount of social distancing inside the church, with only close family members sitting next to each other, and everyone wore their mask, with only one or two people letting their noses stick out over their masks. The priest was the only one who took off his mask when he was about the make comments at the pulpit.

The sermon was evangelical and fiery, with the priest, Reverend Alistair Didloff, exhorting that there was “only one way, Jesus’s way”. I thought about what the many Muslim family members and friends in the congregation thought about this but realised that, on the Cape Flats, there might be many forms of intolerance, but often religious intolerance is not part of it. Most Cape Flats families, including mine, consist of Muslims and Christians and they co-exist quite easily.

Two small pictures of Auntie Rachel were displayed in front of the pulpit, but the absence of the coffin was glaring. On the wall behind the priest was a cross and, written in red and in capital letters: God Our Father, Christ Our Redeemer, Man Our Brother.

Two tributes, delivered by friends, spoke about her involvement in the church and a substance abuse programme aimed at young people in Mitchells Plain and Strandfontein, where she lived. Both described her as someone who was quiet but strong.

As I listened to the tributes, I thought of my own memories of Auntie Rachel, or Baby as she was known by her siblings. It was a name that was adopted by many others. She was, of course, the youngest and, in typical Cape Flats style, she earned the moniker “Baby”. I don’t know at which point she was able to shake off that name.

My dad’s family came from a Moravian background. My grandfather was Carl Fisher, from Mamre, who was married to Magdalene Valentine, whose family was also from Mamre. They gave some of their children German- or Afrikaans-sounding first or second names. My dad’s brothers were Adolfus, Stefanus, Carl, Andrew and Robert and he had two sisters: Gertrude and Rachel. I am sure that Gertrude, Carl, Andrew and Robert also had German- or Afrikaans-sounding second names, as did my dad, whose name was John, but I believe he started off as Joseph. I also heard a rumour that his name might have been Johannes, but I have been unable to confirm this. The six brothers originally had three sisters, but the oldest sister, Gwendoline, died when she was about five or six.

Some of the children changed their names to more English-sounding ones when Oupa Carl (also known as Kallie) moved the family from the Moravian settlement in Mamre to Cape Town where he took on a job in the city’s parks and forest division. He worked there for the rest of his life.

Because she was the youngest of the Fisher siblings, Auntie Rachel was like an older sister to us, especially to my older brothers and sisters. In fact, she came to live with us in Athlone when she was about 15 years old and stayed until she was 21 when she moved in with my great-aunt, Caroline Dantu (née Valentine), my grandmother’s sister. I was a baby then but learned about this later.

Admittedly, we have not kept in touch much of the past few decades, but when my parents were alive, my dad’s siblings used to visit our house regularly.

Auntie Rachel married Norman Miller on 6 January 1973. They would have celebrated their 48th wedding anniversary next month. She leaves behind her two children, Mario and Abigail, three grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Their third child, Jerome, passed away a few years ago.

Auntie Rachel might not have been well-known or a public personality, but she affected those around her in a special way. Her death brings to the end a generation of Fishers, which means that my siblings and I, and our cousins, are now the last line in the family legacy. I hope that our words and actions will continue to have the blessings and support of those who went before us. Farewell, Auntie Rachel. May you rest in peace.

(Written especially for this website on Thursday, 17 December 2020)

A view of the pulpit, without the coffin.