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travel virus in Germany, when I was still very small and floppy.

      In Germany, researchers developed cell therapy specifically for people with Down Syndrome. The theory was that lamb foetal brain cells could help to stop them ageing prematurely, enhancing their health and diminishing some of the physical traits. To complement the therapy, other therapies to stimulate the child were suggested.

      For the best results, the first treatment had to start within the first twelve months of a baby’s life. When my parents heard about it, they realised that they had only three weeks before the June holidays (by that stage my mother had already started teaching again) and that the December holidays would be too cold in Europe. The following year would have been too late.

      So during the June holidays, they took me for to the Kinderklinik in Aschaffenburg, for treatment by Prof Franz Schmid.

      We flew to London. My mother told me that the flight was no problem because I slept most of the time. I was three months old. We did a lot of sightseeing, and I was breastfed wherever we went.

      Many people were amazed to see such a little thing – I was very small for my age. They were so interested in me and made a huge fuss of me. A little girl wanted to know whether I was a boy or a girl. When my mother told her that I was a girl, she became very excited and declared: “So she can marry the prince!” Princess Di’s baby, William, Britain’s heir-to-be to the throne, was also born about that time.

      At the clinic my parents got to know an American couple who had brought their baby boy there. In her diary, my mother wrote that she noticed that I was much livelier than the other kids. She also noticed that all the parents there accepted and loved their children. Because all of them had children who looked and functioned differently, the parents soon bonded.

      One of the problems that people with Down Syndrome have is that we have hardly any nose bridge. This can impact on a baby’s breathing. And our eyes are easily infected because the tear glands can become clogged as a result of the poorly developed nose bridge. In addition, the facial skin can be quite dry because of clogged oil glands.

      These are some of the problems that they were trying to alleviate with the cell implants. My tear glands were sometimes so severely infected that my parents feared that the puss might damage my eyes. The day after we left the clinic, the infection cleared. My mother believed that it was the result of the implants. The treatment had to be repeated every six months until I was four. The vaccine was later imported and this enabled Dr Karshagen to inject me here in South Africa.

      My mother says things weren’t always easy. She always wanted everything to be just right. She became very tense whenever she felt that she was not succeeding and not coping.

      But God did not abandon her. He started sending his angels to our house. And even to Pick n Pay. There, among the shelves, the wife of a professor once told her: “Classical music has a calming effect on babies. Let Shéri listen to classical music. And talk to her like you would to any other little one.”

      And so my parents talked to me about anything and everything while they were bathing or dressing me. They pointed out birds, clouds in the sky, flies against the window, the moon and the stars. And sometimes my dad danced with my mom, and with me.

      I can still hear myself laughing. They were so funny. It was fun, and I was happy.

      Dance was a Dad Jerry thing. I must have been about ten when we went on the cruise on the Sinfonia. The evening of the Captain’s Ball, my mother looked like the photographs of her when she was a RAG princess as a student. She looked so young and pretty in her black evening dress with her blow-dried hair falling softly on her shoulders. My dad had on a yellow bowtie. He bowed and asked her for a dance. When he danced with my mother, his dance feet and steps always improved. And then came the dance that left everyone stunned. I was sitting with my sisters at the table, watching our parents dance. Then my father came over, held out his hand and with a bow, as if I were a princess, asked: “May I?”

      I jumped up. My feet had been itching! It was exactly what I’d been waiting for. My father soon realised there was a slight problem. I was too short and he was too tall. This meant that he’d have had to bend down so low that he’d look 80 years old.

      So he picked me up, and I sort of sat on his hip. He took my hand and we danced with his feet on the dance floor and mine in the clouds.

      Now I know exactly what it feels like to be in the clouds.

      I think it is almost like being in heaven.

      My father succeeded in sometimes taking me, my mom and my sisters to the clouds.

      My dad died

      I often wonder why my dad had to die.

      For months I wondered why my dear piano teacher, Juffrou Susan – who never ever wanted to learn to drive – was run over by a car.

      And why my dad had to die so alone and so far away from us, at a waterfall. My dad, who always came home early to be with us. Who always wanted us around him. Who said that he could not live without us. And who was afraid of heights.

      He died in 2001, two months after Juffrou Susan, in a way that we could never have imagined, and just as unexpectedly as she did.

      On 14 August I was nineteen years old, Marisa was in matric at Oranje Girls School and Suzette at the primary school. I was at home watching television, Marisa was studying for the September exams and Suzette was at a school choir practice. My mother was visiting my granny. And then chaos erupted …

      Prof Stef Coetzee, at the time vice-chancellor of the University of the Free State and also a friend of my father, heard that my dad had gone missing at the Augrabies Falls. He and his wife, Rienie, immediately drove to my grandmother’s to tell my mother.

      People streamed to our house. By then my mother had fetched Suzette and told her that my father was missing. Marisa somehow knew something was wrong and went to my granny’s house, where she heard the news. I was the only one who did not know. When my mother got home, she ran upstairs to my room to tell me. I was in the passage when I heard it. I stormed to my room and slammed the door. I wanted to be alone and didn’t want to talk to anyone.

      Rev Charles Mitchell, one of the ministers at our church, came to see us, and my mother told him that I hadn’t left my room and that I didn’t want to see anyone. He came upstairs to see me and we chatted for a while. He encouraged me to always let my light shine for Jesus. I remember this like yesterday.

      That evening, my mother decided that we had to go to Augrabies as soon as possible, to look for my dad. Someone from the university offered to take us, and the following morning we were on our way. It was very far, and we cried all the way. Rev Riaan van der Merwe, our other minister, was waiting for us at Augrabies. My dad’s brother and sister had also driven there from Calvinia, as well as his brother from Cape Town.

      The rocks around the waterfall were extremely slippery. While we were walking around, I was with Rev Van der Merwe, Marisa with my mother, and Suzette with Mariette Klopper, a friend of my mother and a colleague of my father.

      We were all still crying when my mother suggested that we make my father a cross. That kept us busy and Mr Attie Smit helped us. We used two pieces of wood and a plastic bag, and stuck some wild flowers under the plastic band of the cross, and placed it on the spot where he went missing.

      My mother, Marisa and Suzette joined a local farmer in his light aircraft to look for my dad.

      I didn’t want to go. I wanted to be alone. I had no idea how to handle the extreme heartache I was feeling. I loved my dad so, so much. And it was terrible to see our whole family so sad.

      The following day my mother decided that it was time to say goodbye. It was as if my whole world crumbled. My mother knew that my dad’s body would only rise to the top of the water once decay had set in, and she didn’t want to expose us to that.

      Rev Van der Merwe decided to conduct a service

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