DURING times of loneliness and longing for her late son, who passed away in November 2020, poet, Rozetta Whitting, from Algoa Park, began writing poems as a method of helping her to cope with her grief, which she plans to share in her newly published poetry collection, titled Hope After Pain.
As previously reported by the PE Express, Whitting wrote her first poem in 1995, but she stopped writing for some time because she did not believe that she was good enough to be a poet.
Despite only writing her second poem in 2017, she never put down her pen and when something came to mind, she wrote it down.
In 2020 her son, Alvin, who was born with Down syndrome, inspired her to write her first poetry collection as a motivational message about the genetic disorder.
In addition, her poetry collection also focused on her life as a mother of two boys, Alvin and Alan, who was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer in 2019 and is now in remission, and her experience after losing her firstborn child, Lana, when she died in a car accident at two-and-a-half years old.
Her debut poetry collection, titled Hemelgedigte which translates to Heaven’s Poems, was published in March 2020and she received her first copy on November 19, 2020, on Alvin’s 33rd birthday.
Sadly, 10 days after Hemelgedigte was published, Alvin died of a heart attack.
“Alvin’s passing hit me very hard, and I still can’t get over his sudden death,” said Whitting.
She said she knew she would be lost without her son but never thought it would be this difficult.
“He was always by my side and even though it has been 16 months since his passing people still ask me why I am alone because they were used to seeing us together,” said Whitting.
During times of loneliness and longing for her late son, she said she wrote poems to cope with her grief.
Now she plans to share her experience in her newly published poetry collection of 32 poems.
Whitting said the book, which has been published by Memezela Press, helped her work through some of the pain she experienced after her son’s passing.
One of the poems in the collection, titled Last time I held you in my arms, Whitting writes, “My arms are empty since you passed away. Never does a day go by without me longing to hold you in my arms again. It is hard to accept that you are not coming back.”
Whitting said in May last year her only surviving child, Alan, and his wife, Tanya, welcomed her first grandchild, Joshua, which has given her hope that her pain will ease, even though it will never disappear.
“Hope after Pain is a way of getting rid of the frustrations of being alone. In this collection I’m trying to come to terms with the pain I experienced with the loss of my children,” she said.
The book launch for Hope after Pain will be on May 14 at ACVV Algoa Park at 14:30.
Tickets are R50 per person.
A signed copy of the book will be on sale for R150.
“The book is a real tear-jerker and I warn people to bring along enough tissues,” Whitting said.
