Close Industry Friend Shares She Struggles With Grief In A heartfelt Tribute to Mpho Sebeng
Close Industry Friend Shares She Struggles With Grief In A heartfelt Tribute to Mpho Sebeng. One thing about grief, it never goes away. There will be times when you think you are over the loss, and something triggers you right back to the unimaginable pain of bereavement.
This is exactly how Tsholo Rabotsho is feeling, two years after the loss of her good friend, Mpho Sebeng. The award winning actor was involved in a car accident in Potchefstroom, in the North West, on the 5th of May 2024. Since then, the industry, colleagues and fans have kept his memory alive in the most amazing ways. Mpho got nominated for awards, and we have seen him on TV shows, months after his passing.
For Tsholo, her grief is a roller coaster. There are good days, and there are days, she struggles to cope. She is also saddened by the fact that some of the amazing memories she has had with Mpho are fading from her memory. Tsholo also can’t bring herself to watch her friend do his thing on TV.
“Grief is such an unpredictable concept. I’d like to think of mine like a scab of a wound – a sign of healing. There are days when I forget it’s there and then, one day I’m pulling on a jersey and the pieces of wool catch on the scab, triggered – it starts bleeding again; taking me back to the day the wound was inflicted.
I was so stupid to believe we had all the time in the world.
My grief covered the few people who cared enough to listen like a blanket. To this day, my children call me to “come see your friend on TV” and I still react to this loss with a befitting knee jerk. Then, it’s 16:30 on the 5th of May 2024 again.
I get deeply embarrassed when I realise that memories of our last lunch are slowly leaving me, mainly because I haven’t been the person you left for a very long time. The conversation I can’t recall. What you wore. What I wore. What the weather was like. If I knew that was the last time, I would have taken every single thing in. Alas, the only thing I recall is that we spent hours at Guilt & Co. even when we both had more important things to do.
You would’ve loved Brunch With Tsholo but you would have loved the person it made me even more. I get it now. Why you always pushed everyone around you to chase after their goals, living your dream life is enough when it’s all you have and I finally understand your contentment with the life God gave you. You had absolutely no reason to hold back in a world that tells everyone to. I know you went back home with an empty heart.
My grief is just love and good conversation with nowhere to go. I still can’t watch your shows yet they’re the only tangible proof I have that you existed – “Look. I’m not crazy. This is who I lost. He wasn’t a figment of my imagination”. But as the years go, I’m starting to feel like I’m mourning the concept of you because your reality isn’t here to hold. I want to stop falling apart randomly on my 6AM run and while I’m making breakfast and when I wake up in the middle of the night, but where do I put the memories and the grief I carry? Where does all this love go, Mpho Sebeng?” Tsholo said.
