The kindness and beauty of this city healed me after my third miscarriage
It was the day before my 12-week scan when my third miscarriage started, and two days before my boyfriend was due to go to South Africa, working as a producer on a four-week advertising shoot. I’d been through the horror of miscarriage before, twice, and even though this time around we had our 20-month-old daughter Raffy – our one successful pregnancy – this miscarriage felt particularly cruel. An emergency dash to hospital, general anaesthetic and an overnight stay – my first night away from my baby. My body felt broken, and my heart shattered.
There wasn’t much that would or could make it better, but there were little things I knew from experience that might help. Rest, sunshine on my face, books, sea air, time to think and heal.
So when, after putting his flight back as far as he could without getting fired, Jon flew off to Cape Town, we closely followed suit, my tiny co-pilot and I, on her first long-haul flight, to a city I’d never been. We packed her little tiger trunk full of toys and games, filled the iPad with hours of Peter Rabbit, and took a million deep breaths, but through no fault of her own, other than being little and not understanding where we were or what we were doing, the flight was textbook terrible.
Air stewards gave me nothing, no support, just disparaging looks if she cried, with added input from the group of male golfers sat behind me that her tears were because “I’d let her get overtired”, as though I hadn’t been rocking, singing, soothing every second the plane was in flight.
Thank goodness for the two toddler mums on the flight, who handed over their own children to their partners, seeing that I was alone, and came over with books, sympathy, solidarity and tiny acts of kindness at the very moments I needed them most.
We landed exhausted but exhilarated in Cape Town, where Jon was waiting for us, our little family unit reunited again. Our driver took us on the scenic route around Table Mountain, past beaches, parks and signs of life a world away from what I knew, to our Camps Bay Airbnb, where our host was waiting for us, at her family home.
She showed us, with pride, the pool, heavenly views of the sea, the kitchen, with a welcome bottle of wine and packets of chocolate biscuits she’d bought for us sitting on the table. Pictures of her family were everywhere, her two teenage children when they were my daughter’s age, dotted all over the house, love beaming from walls.
When our host left, when Raffy went for her nap and Jon went to work, I lay in the sun, with my book by my side and I let myself cry. But rather than the hopeless tears I’d been crying up until that point, under the warmth of the sun, these tears felt different, somehow therapeutic, healing.
That evening, we walked down to Camps Bay, chose a nondescript restaurant overlooking the beach, ate pizza and I drank my first glass of wine in 12 weeks, while strangers doted on our daughter – stroking her hair, giving her high-fives – gestures that now, in the midst of this Covid-19 pandemic, seem from such a distant past.
Every day for that first week, we would walk, swim, play, read. The sunshine soaking up my tears, that enormous ocean doing its job of making me remember things are so much bigger than me. In the evenings, we ordered in sushi, drank wine from Babylonstoren, the beautiful vineyard/hotel/restaurant where we’d taken an incredible day trip, watched terrible films on Netflix. Then, while Jon went to work, Raffy and I took trips to the aquarium, to the shops along the V&A Waterfront, eating ice creams, while she danced manically to buskers, taking little train tours around the mall while she lent out the window, shouting “CHOO CHOO” at waving passers-by.
Her appetite for all these new sights and sounds was infectious, and I found myself, little by little, feeling if not happy, at least a very close relation of it.
After a week, we were due to go home. But, honestly, I wasn’t ready. Partly because Raffy had developed an ear and chest infection, and partly because the thought of flying back to a home so rapidly changing as coronavirus moved from being a headline to a stark reality, seemed too overwhelming just yet.
Jon was due to move from our perfect little heartbreak hotel of an Airbnb to the Mount Nelson, a five-star pink paradise, gardens bursting with flowers, pools and terraces ideal for a martini. We packed our bags, moved our flights and went with him.
It was perfect. From the tiny dressing gown and toy penguin they had left in our room for Raffy, to the kindest and most thoughtful staff, remembering her name and making her feel as welcome as we were, even when she lobbed a croissant across the breakfast room, or chased the hotel cat around the gardens shouting “MIAOW!” with wild abandon.
Our bedroom’s terrace, the size of our London garden, became my happy place. I would sit and read Sally Rooney in the sunshine, while Raffy slept off her sickness. I would eat room service club sandwiches and chips, before taking her down for a swim in the bath warm pool.
I had a massage at the hotel spa, confirming my belief that beauticians are called “therapists” for a reason. It’s weird to think that massage was the last time I was touched by someone that wasn’t Jon or Raffy, but I’m so glad it was a touch not wasted.
As our new flight home loomed nearer, reports of what was going on back home became more and more of a reality. You could feel Cape Town shifting, too – staff in the restaurant wore latex gloves and served you from the buffet rather than letting you help yourself (probably no bad thing, given my appetite for a buffet breakfast).
Huge hand sanitiser dispensers appeared around the hotel, with mini bottles subtly arriving in your bathroom. Gatherings of more than a hundred people were banned. Then Jon’s shoot was cancelled, the crew’s safety being too much of a worry to let it go ahead. It was, quite honestly, a relief.
We could head home, not together, because our flight was full and Jon had to take one two hours later but, at least, we could leave for the airport as a family, knowing we’d be together again soon.
On the plane, Raffy and I sat next to Maureen, a beautiful grandma from Scotland, who had been away with her son and his wife, taking a break from full-time caring for her husband and his Alzheimer’s. She played with Raffy, laughed with her, and didn’t mind the myriad times we had to clamber over her to go for a walk.
Another grandma stopped me on one of those walks, to tell me what a wonderful job she thought I was doing. I cried, of course I cried, but the tears were grateful ones. The cabin crew were extraordinary, letting me sit in a darkened part of their work station to rock Raffy to sleep, holding back my dinner until she was safely snoozing in her bassinet. Checking in on me whenever they passed. It was the perfect way to end our trip, an ode to the immeasurable power of kindness.
I had gone to Cape Town hoping to feel a little better, perhaps to feel more me. I hadn’t expected to fall in love, with a city and its beaches, its people and their kindness. It took me in when I was at my lowest, and helped me remember the joys of life. I hope I never “need” travel in the same way again but, at least if I do, I will always know the power of its magic.
