R.I.P Khensani Maseko

Last Friday I went to the doctor to check up something, something that I can’t share now but later if it gets serious I will probably write and be all dramatic about it.

“Is it going to hurt?” I asked him.

“No…” The doctor said. You know doctors always lie, whenever they are doing any kind of procedure and no matter the side effects they will always lie, perhaps to calm you down or give you hope! Just like my parents did…I remember when I was younger I would ask pertinent questions about life and they would tell me ‘it will be fine’. No mom, nothing is fine in this world! And nothing warns you about the side effects of life, especially not even death.

I remember last year my friend was doing a photo-shoot for her new clothing brand and asked me to do the model’s makeup. I was somewhat hesitant because I am not a makeup artist and I am far from being a professional but I couldn’t say no to her, she is a good friend to me. So, I got there, all the girls showed up late, walking like they owned the room, you know the typical “queen bees” of Rhodes. There was this girl that kept asking me questions about my experience with makeup and bla bla, she could spot I was an amateur. And she made me feel even more nervous for saying yes to my friend. She then decided to go ahead and do her own makeup, which made me realise she didn’t trust me and it was okay. I asked the other girls who she was because it was obvious that she was someone ‘popular’ lol . They told me she is “Miss something”, I really can’t remember.

Throughout the session, we interacted more, she was actually sweet, she complimented me on my hair, and I complimented on her body. She had a very sexy body, like she worked out or something. The clothes fit perfectly on her, like they were made specifically for her. She then apologised for doing her makeup and asked me to finish it, and I did. It wasn’t a big deal, we even shared jokes and she asked to borrow one of my lipsticks. I wanted to say no because it was one of my favourites but I couldn’t say no to a girl like her. You know you would look at her and say this one is going far in whatever she is doing. She was beautiful, confident and very full of herself.

Yesterday I had the unpleasant news that she committed suicide, I couldn’t believe it. Not that one! She didn’t look the type that would lose herself like that, she was the kind of girl that when she entered a room, you would actually feel threatened. They told me she was depressed…I have never met anyone in this life who didn’t cross paths with depression. But one thing is to experience it, another thing is to allow it become part of you. People throw around the word ‘depressed’ like it’s something light, like you lost your job or you got dumped. No…depression is more than that! It is a voice in your head recounting every wrong thing you have done…It becomes your identity, the pain is so strong that you don’t know yourself anymore. I have no idea what she was feeling but at that point it didn’t matter how beautiful she was and the bright future ahead of her, there was something deeper destroying her.

When you hear someone has passed away, you always ask what happened? How? What? When? Why? No one has the answers to the ‘why’s’, only she knows what killed her. But I think we all contributed to this. We killed her! This world killed her! We kill each other every day with hurtful words, pointing fingers and doing mean things…we really killed her because we failed to help her. Once someone told me that when you want to die, you become silent, you make sure no one stops you but she wanted to be stopped… She was asking for help! I stalked her Instagram page like everyone else and you could see from her last posts that she was telling us what she was about to do and no one stopped her…no one!

What made me more devastated about her passing was the fact that she was forced to do this... And that force is epidemic! It’s funny when you go through something, it seems like the world around you is being affected by the same thing. We all have been raped at some point of our lives but I can tell you that the rape doesn’t only happen that day, it continues after that but one day you will finally heal… and I wish Khensani allowed time to do that for her but she decided her fate... At least suicide is consensus, she had the last word! I know you are in a better place and I hope your soul has found the peace you needed…

My condolences to Khensani’s family and friends. She was one of a kind!

Rest in Peace Khensani Maseko

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