Obituary

Born in 1953, the year of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, our Elizabeth wore the crown better, had superior comic timing and made a finer stew. She visited Buckingham Palace in 2006, just to check out the competition.

She began life as the daughter of a policeman, which meant her childhood was basically one long, dizzying game of being geographically bundled from primary school to primary school like a delightfully stubborn piece of luggage — Mahamba, Mater Dolorosa, Hlathikhulu, Lomahasha — learning early on two fundamental truths of existence:

• How to make friends fast, and
• How to assess a room in three seconds flat and deliver a deadpan remark that would knock the smugness out of anyone.

After finishing at Mhlume Secondary, she went off to Staff Training (now SIMPA) to study accounting, because if there was one thing T.E. understood, it was that numbers — unlike people — don’t try to talk back. She took those accounting skills on a wild corporate tour: first at Swaziland Milling, then a stint at a Chinese spoon factory (because why not handle the logistics of cutlery?), before finally landing at the Manzini City Council where she spent over three decades keeping the town’s books balanced, surviving bureaucracy through sheer force of sarcastic willpower, before taking a well-earned early retirement just shy of sixty.

La eGudunkomo ke wangena ngemtsimba in the early 80s to marry her now long-departed husband, Robin Fanyana Mzila Ndwandwe. Together, they had one daughter, Singilili, who joined the ranks alongside S’phiwe Nxumalo-Sithole and Mxolisi Kunene. But listen — to say those were her only children would be a biological technicality so ridiculous it borders on offensive. Mama LaDlovunga did not do small-scale motherhood. She was a mother to her husband’s children, his grandchildren, his great-grandchildren, and pretty much every single child la eGudunkomo. If you were breathing and carried the surname, congratulations: she was your mother, she was judging your outfit. Bekangu Mama in the purest sense.

And then there was the food. Good God, the food. Long before “community outreach” was a corporate buzzword, Mama LaDlovunga ran her own rogue, magnificent Sunday feeding scheme for bogogo. Every single Sunday after church, back when her legs were still operating at maximum efficiency, every elderly woman in the community knew where to go. LaDlovunga believed, with radical conviction, that every old woman deserved at least one magnificent, full-course meal a week. It was basic human decency delivered on a plate, and it was fiercely loved by everyone who ate at her home.

In her late fifties, she found her spiritual home at Flowing in the Spirit. Naturally, she immediately commandeered the kitchen. She started a whole cooking ministry, preparing traditional, gloriously healthy meals for the Bishop — because even spiritual leaders need proper nourishment and a woman around to tell them to eat their vegetables. She was a powerhouse, affectionately known as Indlov’enkulu and the Bishop’s Yith’abantu. She was so utterly devoted to church that she never missed a midweek service on Tuesday or Thursday. Well, except for recent years, when the days of the week started getting a bit scrambled and she’d rock up proudly on a Monday or a Wednesday, looking around the empty church absolutely furious that nobody else had the discipline to show up on time.

On the morning of Saturday, 3 October, she woke up with her speech slurred, and was rushed to Dvokolwako Hospital. A CT scan revealed that a middle cerebral artery ischemia had claimed a massive portion of her left brain. On Saturday, 10 October at 3pm, surrounded by the family she had bossed around, nurtured, and loved fiercely for seventy-three years, she took her final, peaceful breath.

She ascends now to a remarkably noisy reunion. She joins her recently departed daughter S’phiwe, her mother uLaKhathwane, her beloved brothers Alfred and Lucky Dlamini, and a whole host of friends and relatives who have undoubtedly been waiting for her to arrive and liven up the place.

Mama LaDlovunga leaves behind a legacy built on two unshakeable pillars: an endless ocean of love, and a razor-sharp wit and weaponised sarcasm.

Rest in peace, Mama. Heaven had better be ready — and the Sunday lunch service up there is about to improve dramatically.