Bravely picking up shattered lives

04 March 2012 - 02:15 By BUYEKEZWA MAKWABE
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VALERIE Phillips put flowers on her son's grave just hours after the taxi driver who caused his death in a crash that shook South Africa was jailed for murder.

Eighteen months ago she packed a sandwich, chocolate bar and juice in a lunch box and sent 13-year-old Jody to school at Bellville Technical High in Cape Town. Within an hour he lay dead, neck broken, with nine other children.

Jacob Humphries, the man Phillips had entrusted with her son, had recklessly raced between closed booms at the Buttskop railway crossing.

It was "a callous and blatant disregard for the rules of the road and traffic laws", said Judge Robert Henney in the High Court in Cape Town.

The other children who died in the crash on August 25 2010 were rape survivor Lisle Augis, 11, who was dubbed "the little rock" after her rape ordeal, Reece Smith, 7, Jade Adams, 10, Michaelin de Koker, 11, Nolan February, 13, Jean-Pierre Willeman, 13, Cody Erasmus, 15, Nadine Marthinissen, 16, and Jason Pedro, 14.

Only four of the passengers - including a teenager who suffered cracked ribs, a punctured lung and had to have his spleen removed - survived. The driver of train 3209, who had more than 30 years' experience, had to be sent for trauma counselling.

Humphries, who started driving children to school in 2001, was jailed for 20 years on 10 counts of murder on Tuesday.

Ingrid Augis, one of the parents whose lives were torn apart by the tragedy, has forgiven the 56-year-old Humphries. She did so, she said, as a lesson in forgiveness and love to her five remaining children.

"He did not plan it. And whatever you do, your children do. I need to teach mine to love," Augis said.

She described her daughter as a "strong child who overcame great trauma". Lisle was raped in 2006 by a family friend, Abraham James. He beat her unconscious with a brick, threw her into a fire and then went to visit her parents.

After she crawled out of the flames and staggered home, the little girl came face-to-face with her tormentor. James was jailed for 28 years for rape and attempted murder.

As part of her healing process, Augis gave away Lisle's clothes. She said God had given her the strength to forgive Humphries. "She lives in my heart, always. And I had to forgive to move on," she said.

Augis's neighbour, Shaheeda Hendricks, said about Lisle: "Like her mom [she] always [had] a smile on her face. She died during the holy month of Ramadan. She had been fasting with us."

Jade Adams's mother, Judy Cyster, cannot feel sorry for Humphries or forgive him.

"What he did, he brought unto himself. Perhaps if he had come to us as the families and said 'sorry' I might have felt different. That accident changed our lives forever," she said.

Closure has also not come easily for Phillips, who wept silently as the judge handed down the 20-year sentence.

On Jody's birthday last year, she bought a frosted angel fruitcake. It is still on the family's dining room table.

A table in the living room features all the cards of condolence and good wishes people have sent to the family since the tragedy. Next to them are pictures of all the victims.

"I don't hate him for a stupid human error and I don't hold it against his family, but my children are my life," said Phillips. In tears, she said she had lost another son, Tyler, six years ago. He died only four days after his birth.

She said Jody "lived for rugby" and could already drive a car when he was just 13.

"Other people may not understand what I do, but I need to keep his memory alive," she said. The lunch box, retrieved from the accident scene, lies in her freezer. It still holds a chocolate bar, juice and sandwich - a memory frozen in time.

Phillips had to explain to her only remaining child, Kaedy, why his "boeta" could not share his fifth birthday cake with him.

"We have had to move him to our bedroom. He slept with Jody since he was 18 months old and he struggles to fall asleep now."

She fought back the tears when she took Kaedy to put flowers on Jody's grave. "He turned before leaving and said: 'Boeta be a good boy for Jesus. Don't be naughty.' "

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