Bloodbath: Is daddy back yet?
2006-06-27 23:20
Johannesburg - "Mommy, is daddy back yet?" This innocent question from three-year-old Braeden Schoeman made his mother, Brenda, sob uncontrollably on Tuesday afternoon.
The little boy's father, sergeant Gert Schoeman, 30, was shot dead with three other police officers on Sunday.
"How am I going to tell him his dad will never come back again? How will he ever understand it?" asked Brenda, who is four months pregnant.
She is one of three wives who suddenly became widows on Sunday after a bloody shoot-out at a gang hideout in Jeppestown, Johannesburg.
Her sergeant husband, inspector Victor Mathye, 49, inspector Frikkie van Heerden, 32, and constable Francois Seaward, 31, were shot dead when police stormed the hideout of a gang of robbers, believed to be responsible for hitting supermarkets.
Wedding ring is gone
Brenda said: "We were going to have a sonar done in the next few days to find out whether it was a boy or a girl.
"My husband died without ever knowing if his second child was a boy or a girl," sobbed Brenda on Tuesday at their home in Greenhills on the West Rand.
"The worst for me is that someone took his wedding ring. That's all I want back. Please ask the people to give it back to me," she pleaded.
Two photos of her husband lay on the coffee table with several letters people had written to him, thanking him for his "prompt and friendly" service.
"He would have been promoted to inspector next year - that was his greatest dream.
"He was proud of being a policeman. He lived for his work.
"He was never afraid to put his life on the line for someone else.
"When he died, he wasn't fighting for his own money, he fought for someone else's money."
The Schoemans celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary in April.
"I knew what the risk was of marrying a policeman. You know something like that can happen at any time, but I never thought it would happen so soon. How does one get through it?"
Her red-headed son is a "constant remembrance" of her husband.
"My husband was so glad when Braeden was born with red hair. And Braeden idolised his dad.
"He did everything his daddy did. He even put on his dad's boots regularly or hid his police cap and put it on.
"He doesn't understand his daddy will never come back?"
Brenda stared at her husband's photo and was silent for a while.
'Where to now, all alone?'
Then, she said: "People always complain about the police's service: that they arrive too late at a scene or don't do their work.
"My husband did his work. That's the heartache: the people who do their work, die like this. Those who don't want to work stay alive."
She did not ask why it had happened.
"I only ask: where to now? Where to now, all alone? Alone with a three-year-old child who'll never know his dad.
"And, alone with a child who hasn't even been born yet."