Born in Bonteheuwel on the Cape Flats, Irma G was so sickly as a child, that she spent her days dreaming of becoming a medical doctor. That way, one day, she would be able to change the world and make other sick children feel better.
But then came the day, as she was walking through her local mall, when the now-teenage Irma happened to hear a deejay for an in-house radio station inviting shoppers to get into the groove.
“It called my name immediately,” recalls Irma, who followed her calling and went on to make her name as one of South Africa’s best-loved presenters, on KFM, Good Hope FM, and Heart 104.9FM.
Still staying close to home, in Mitchells Plain, Irma believes listeners tune in to their favourite station not just to hear the music they like, but because “they want to be in someone’s company, they want to feel a hug over the airwaves, they want to hear their name, they want to know someone cares.”
And for a growing number of listeners, that someone is Irma G, who sat down with Ruda for a candid chat about relationships, workplace pressures, lockdown, health struggles, and the art of fighting to make your hopes and dreams come true.
Transcription of Ruda Talks Change with Irma G
RL: Hello, welcome to another session of Ruda Talks Change on the Change Exchange – it looks a bit different from usual. We’re all in a frame and it looks well, you will never know what we’re wearing at the bottom. Might be tracksuits, might be nothing and warm socks. So, but still, you’re very welcome and we’re going to have a lovely conversation with Irma G. Irma G is a is a radio person and radio people love talking and know how to do it, huh. You are so welcome, thank you for sharing your time with us.
IG: Thank you so very much for having me Ruda, it’s an absolute pleasure.
RL: You grew up in Bonteheuwel and then Mitchells Plain, and what did you, what did you want to do? What were your dreams when you were a child?
IG: Uhm … Well, to be honest, I was quite a sickly child. I wasn’t expected to live beyond the age of six. So, for me, being the youngest of seven children, I thought I was going to go and change the world and become a medical doctor. All of that changed when one day walking in the local shopping mall, I came across what was called Radio West, back then headed up by Mark (inaudible). So, it was a kind of in-house radio station and it called my name immediately. That was standard eight, add to grade 10. That was grade 10 and I started doing weekend jobs, got paid R200 a month, but it really wasn’t about the money, it was genuinely about that first love that I had that I found and so …
RL But you. You were quite serious about it right from the start, you said that you changed your subject. You changed quite everything about me …
IG: Absolutely, oh yeah!
RL: To be able to do this.
IG: Absolutely. So in grade 11, I made the change and I kept maths higher grade, I did speech and drama, business management and just changed all my subjects around to, to give myself that chance and then obviously I thought, okay, well, speech and drama, I have to go to UCT Drama School. I did all the auditions and the final one was on the morning of my valedictory and I quite literally just said to them, no, sorry, I can’t do it. Never, I never turned back, never went back to, to speech and drama but I just, I felt it was important, was quite vital for me to have those last couple of hours with my schoolmates and to, to do a proper like matric farewell, because that doesn’t happen very often and so …
RL: That’s an interesting choice that you, you know, it says something about your, your values, what you what you, really value as most important, relationships.
IG: Absolutely, I mean, I will tell you, the very first day I walked home, and I said to my mom, I’m going to be in radio. She said, Oh, God, daughter, no, please get a nine-to-five, get a pension pay out, do something else. And I made myself and my parents then the promise that I will live with absolute integrity, I’ll never tell a lie a day in my life because this is media. Let’s be honest, one lie leads to another lie, leads to another and 10 years down the line, you have to remember what you lied 10 years ago about. It, it was just too complicated and so, this is how I lead my life. I live and speak my truth daily, sometimes it’s for a good cause, sometimes it cements where I am in life and sometimes, it just makes things crumble, but it’s the choice I made about 20 something odd years ago and so this is me, this is my absolute truth.
RL: Working at the Westlake Mall, you came into contact, you met Clive Ridgeway, who was one of the senior radio people in Cape Town then, and that made all the difference. Networking, those connections are so important in one’s life.
IG: Absolutely, uhm … When I met Clive, it wasn’t like, hey, I want to be in radio. It was just I met him, he was such a beautiful, well-tempered, even mannered, wealth of information about radio, and I immediately just latched on and, well, they were having a singing competition and that’s why he was there. He was part of, I think it was still Kfm back then or Radio Kontre, I think they just made the switch to Kfm, and he was there to basically kind of … you know, he’s got a good ear of what being part of a rocking horse music, forever and a day, still performing today and writing music and has a song writing school. So, he was there for that reason to, to lend the ear, to find someone good, and I was just there as an absolute sponge, knowing what I wanted to do in life. And so, he said to me, hey, come on, have a look at the radio station sometime so you can see how things really operate. And that turned into me meeting then PR, Gina Ginsberg, and I did … uhh, data capturing for them, which was supposed to be for two weeks because she needed some stuff put on the computer, you know. Not everybody was computer savvy back then, thank God I was, and then that led into me never having left radio. That was my end, data capturing.
RL: You know, what would, I find so interesting about that, is, I write support materials for young people for the first years and for final years – and for the final years, It’s all about finding the job and one of the things that, that I found myself stressing, is, don’t, your first job won’t be your dream job, just get in.
And I mean, as in that case …
IG: Great advice.
RL: You want to be on radio, now there is a possibility. Here’s a thing, sit at this desk and do data capturing. Many people would walk away.
IG: It was the most solitary, confining space that was just before they moved out of the SABC, so I was on the second floor.
RL: And boring, more than anything, I suppose.
IG: Sorry, come again?
RL: Boring.
IG: To say that the space was literally like three meters in length and a metre and a half in length, and I had a computer and a desk for all my files, that was it. And Celine Dion’s CD, My Heart Will Go On, that’s what I listened to for two weeks straight. But I mean, if I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t be where I am today, and I’m so grateful for that. And as you say, the connections, the, the lasting connections, I think that’s the most important thing. And that’s something I’ve always kept with me throughout life. Treat everyone the way I want to be treated. And if you are going to put your nose up at me, I will do the same, uhm … And then I’ll ask you straight up, because that’s who I am. Up front, I will ask you face-to- face, like, what’s up? Like, do we need to have a talk? Do we need to go outside and deal with this? Because that’s always how I have been, they say, rough around the edges. I’m just like rough all round, but when it needs to be, I, I’m super finesse and I’m grateful that I am that way because I think it’s … it’s gotten me to the point where I’m still today, which is I still haven’t worked a day in my life. I absolutely love what I do. So, to me, it’s like I get to go to work and literally play. And I mean, what’s better than that?
RL: What you’re saying also touches on something else I came across that, you’ve once said before. Due to your upbringing, you say I can go from a yard jewel to a benefit at the Convention Centre.
IG: But you must say it right Ruda, right. It’s a yard jol.
IG: It’s a yard jol. I mean, but that’s, that’s literally… uhm … it’s, it’s, it’s one of the benchmarks. One of my very good friends actually had for a girlfriend. She must be able to hang out here with me and the boys sitting around the fire and then slip on those heels and walk into the Convention Centre for a black tie. And, and that’s, that’s my life. I mean, it can take you anywhere, it can take you to the roughest of all places, it can take you to the most bougie of places. But I’m grateful that I’ve had all those experiences because they made me who I am.
RL: But it … It also connects to what you were saying about staying true to yourself. That you didn’t leave behind the maybe rougher, maybe, I don’t know how to describe it – but not like the black, a black tie event at the Convention Centre where you grew up, but you retained all of it and that actually makes, makes your, your career persona, more this type, and I mean, it worked for you, also in terms of career.
IG: It works for me. It might not work for the next person, but I think in having had those experiences, still living in Mitchells Plain, today, it’s given me that, that degree of empathy, because that’s, that’s why people switch on the radio. They want to be in someone’s company, they want to feel a hug over the airwaves, they want to hear their name, they want to know someone cares, and, in that moment when I’m reading your message or when I’m dealing with a conversation and we’re having a one-on-one, I really do feel it. And I, I am Christian, married to a Muslim man, but that does not define who I am as a person. I understand so much more beyond me and beyond my personal experiences, because school, because university, because life experiences and, and it’s always important to think colour. It’s never black and white when, when you deal with people and when you are in radio. I suppose that’s why people switch on as they, when I don’t want to hear that colour, they want to feel it.
RL: I want to ask you’ve made a number of changes. You were at Kfm, then you went to Good Hope, back to Kfm, Heart, Radio 2000. What motivated those shifts? What made you decide that this is now, I must, in this period and go onto something else.
IG: Some of them are politically charged. And, it’s weird because it’s a lot of things happening in life today and a lot of people don’t talk about it, particularly radio, because it’s such a close-knit family. Uhm … But when I left Kfm the first time, I quite literally was too young to be at Kfm, to service the listeners and to speak about music from back in 1950s when I personally hadn’t had those experiences yet. I couldn’t speak on love, I couldn’t speak on family. And that was, that was what came at the time, was completely wrapped around. And I could appreciate that. And although they gave me my in, I wasn’t being true as it were. So, I then decided to move, and I moved to Good Hope FM. Where I was young, I was, I discovered my nocturnal self. I was literally the life of the party. And that’s because I studied full time and I worked full time. When I was at an event, that was me on a night out with my friends, my colleagues, I didn’t get a chance to, to have a youth, really. But I worked throughout my youth and I got the absolute most out of it. That contract came up after six years due to one of those political snags. And I decided, all right, I’m gonna step back. I flew up to Joburg for a couple of weeks. I literally tendered my CV at any and every radio station that would allow me through the door, and then I came back home, and I waited. And then Clive Richard called me, said, hey, I have an opportunity for you. And I said, I’m great, and I went back. And, uhm … that was through the change of Kfm being bought over by Prime Media and other people took over and Clive left and, I kind of felt like my mentor had left me, so I was now sitting, needing to make grown up decisions for myself. I was, I was a little bit victimised. And so, I decided to leave, and then I went to, to Heart FM. Another good friend of mine, we grew up here in Westridge in Mitchells Plain went to the same church, uhh … Vernon Adams, I called him, I said, do you have anything? I will work weekends. I will work one shift. I just need to get out, and he sent me a contract. I signed it, printed it out at Kfm, signed it, scanned it back, and sent it off. And at the end of the week I left. I started at Heart FM the next week and uhm …
RL: Irma, can I interrupt you there?
IG: Sure!
RL: Because I find one thing really interesting, and that is when, it sounds as if on two occasions, it was, it wasn’t really your choice, it was because you were uncomfortable with where you were. But I don’t hear resentment. I hear, okay, so this is not working out, I will find a different opportunity.
IG: Move on. Yeah, I, I, I’m fortunate enough to not have any resentment because, I’ve literally walked into the offices of the people who had done me wrong and I said my piece. However plain and English or Afrikaans or extremely colourful, which is where I come from, I said my piece and I walked away. So, when I leave, you know how I feel about you and what I said was my truth. And whether nobody else around me believes me, I know my truth and I can sleep very soundly at night.
RL: Yeah, but you also, you don’t hang around and get bitter. You know, so many people stay in a situation …
IG: There’s no time.
RL: And it just, it just wreaks havoc with them inside. You don’t do that.
IG: One thing I learned about radio a very long time ago is that it is still pretty much a male-dominated industry and you either put up or ship out. And so, if you cannot deal with the situation at hand, if you’re being forced a certain way and you don’t like where it’s going, it compromises with itself. You have the right to make the decision to leave, which is why I left Heart FM at, last year, at the end of last year my, uhm … excuse me, this year, in Feb. My decision that I made last year to leave was for self, self-preservation. I’m a mom of two kids, my husband and I. We’ve been together for aeons. We’ve had our ups and downs, but we decided three years ago to, to get married, and that’s where our second one came from. And for me, it was just, you know, I have them that I consider previously it was just me alone or me in a relationship. I mean, my partner wasn’t really that important to me because, because of how I was raised, we wouldn’t live with our boyfriends. We didn’t cohabitate. It was strictly like you come to my house and at a certain time you need to go out and leave. And so that’s you know, that was always my decision was for me. But now this decision was for my family, and I’ve once before been diagnosed with sarcoidosis, which is the inflammation of lymph glands, that was just before I left Kfm. And according to my specialist, they couldn’t find anything wrong with me, so it was purely stress, and when I remove myself from the situation, everything came back. My health came back together, my life back together, like me. It took me two years to lose the weight that I was on, that I had gained due to the steroids that I had to take to shrink my glands back. But I mean, you know, I survived it.
RL: Shooo! And I want to, to move on to your family. Why did you – and I hear you say that you’ve been together for aeons and then, but under kind of controlled circumstances, it sounds like. And then why did you decide to get married?
IG: Ok, so here’s the other truth of me. I always said I would marry for love, whether that left me destitute, whether that had, gave me the most glamorous lifestyle, I would always marry for love. And uhm … when we, uhh … when our son was born, I knew I loved him, but I wasn’t going to be forced into a marriage just because I was pregnant. So, I made a very conscious decision not to get married to him then.
RL: May I ask how old you were then?
IG: 30. I was 30 when my son was conceived, so I yeah, I had a …
RL: So, you were, you were a grown up, person, I mean you were … Yeah.
IG: Proper. Living in my mom’s house with my mom and my dad. All my other siblings had been married and moved out. So, I was the youngest and I promised that I would take care of them until the day they died. So, uhm … that was that, was my other truth. My salary wasn’t always my salary alone. I had to see to the house, I had to fix things and to build things and buy things. And so, it was a, it was a very complicated upbringing, but it was one that I was grateful that I had, because I learned a little bit later on in life how to work with my money, how to deal with my salary, how to create a budget, and I think that’s one of the things as a coloured community, we, we don’t willingly give that to our children. We don’t allow them to, to deal and work with their own money. And, and that causes problems later on in life. So, I made the decision then to just really pay attention to the Rands and say, listen, I can budget anything now. We can live on two cans of fish, pilchards and five potatoes and we can go through a week with food. But that’s you know, that’s also how I was raised. I was the youngest of seven kids. My parents didn’t have a lot. And what they had to keep for the family and, you know, and my, my, my, my parents always believed the more you give, the more you receive. And so that was the way I kind of I raised, I was raised and that was my thinking always growing up. So, there was nothing wrong for me, even though at that time I was still living at home with my parents. The same was, could be said for my partner, for Zahier and my husband. He was still living at home with his mom and grandparents and pretty much doing the same thing I was doing.
RL: Tell me about your decision. Why did you come to the conclusion that this should change now?
IG: My mom had passed, my dad got remarried, and, there was no more need for me to, to take care of it, and I’m not saying had they never passed on, I never would have gotten married, but I think that just, that proved to me then that I needed to live my life for me.
RL: Well it made it possible huh …
IG: Absolutely. And my husband’s also a lot younger than I am. So, uhm … initially when he proposed it was a leap of faith he was taking, and I shut him down immediately. And then all I heard over the years was, I’m never going to ask you to marry me again. And so, I quite literally had to make it okay for him to ask the second time.
RL: So, you didn’t, I asked my husband to get married, to marry me. So, you didn’t want to do that?
IG: No, no, no. I’m still old-school in that regard. I still want that; I want you to ask me. Uhm … But I mean, like I said, we, we went through some stuff, the two of us, in fact, at one stage we were separated. But, and I still say to him today, I would do that over again, being separated for the seven months that we were, the heartache, pain, because that’s when I found out the, thee love that’s what the love was, it wasn’t, I like you in my space, I like you to cuddle or I like you because I think you’re a great father. It was, because my actual whole entire being misses you, longs for you. And I’m not one to speak of my feelings much. I mean, my sisters know and whatever. So, when I let him know that, it changed things for the two of us. And so yeah. And I was also very, I was very silly because when he did ask me, it was a Sunday morning. My son had soccer practice. I was sitting on the soccer field and he came across the field because he was late. He was coming from work with his hands behind his back. And I was like, ugh! Whatever, because I was still mad at him. And then he came to me, he kneeled in front of me and he gave me a bunch of roses and it was 12. It was 11 red roses; one white rose and the white rose indicated our son and the 12-inch total was the amount of years that we’ve been together. He said to me, please marry me. As a final … I said to him, I’ll give you an answer later.
RL: Oh, no, man. After that, how could you do that?
IG: Iwas petty, come on Ruda, I was being very petty. But literally half an hour later, while he was on the soccer field, they were busy training because he’s one of the coaches on my son’s team. I sent him a WhatsApp. I was watching him and I’m watching and I’m like checking his phone. I’m sure that has beeped or something and vibrated in his pocket. And I called him to check your phone dammit. And I checked when he came over to me and he said to me, I love you, thank you so much for making me the happiest man on the planet. And I just said, yeah, uhm … yeah. And that’s, that’s my story.
RL: And, and the kids? So, how did they change you? I mean, you had your son when you were still basically on your own in the beginning and now your little girl under different circumstances. How did, how did they change you? What did they teach you?
IG: Kids will humble you, kids will truly humble you. They uhm … it was actually with my son that I realised that I actually did just have a big mouth and an even bigger heart. Because, I, it led me to those nights when I was talking to listeners and they tell me their stories about how hard it is to take care of kids as a single parent or two, to see to their needs and they, and whatever it is that they, that they require as children growing up. It made me think about all those moments and just exhale and, I think every day for about six months, I cried after my son was born because I could feel that, now I could feel that as being a mother, having birthed the child. And I’m not saying that you can’t feel it unless you have children, because obviously a lot of people don’t want children and that’s their own choices in life. But for me, it’s softened my rough edges so much that I could see, I could sense. And when I speak, people speak on, still today about losing a parent or losing a child or having gone through some trauma. Like, I feel it inside me, because I’m thinking, what would I have done if that was me, if that was my children. So, oh, man, it’s just, it’s, it made me a big, fluffy marshmallow.
RL: Tell me something about where you live now. You said, did, you moved out from your parents’ house then? And how did you choose your next home?
IG: I did. That wasn’t a choice that I wanted to make, but it was a choice I had to make, uhm … A lot of people go through this when a parent passes on and, you know, Erfgeld is Swerfgeld and I, I wasn’t going to fight, my siblings, who wanted the house that was left to me and who wanted the things that was left to me, but they were only left to me because I took care of my parents. And so, it was a very, it was one of those other tough decisions in life where, like, okay, so, this is the situation you’re faced with, what are you going to do? And literally in two weeks’ time to move into this place that we’re in right now because the lawyers called and said my dad had sold the house upon my request because I was going through some family drama with siblings who, didn’t want me to have anything. And I said, okay, well, I need to find a place to stay and it took me two weeks to find this place, uhh … This house, when we moved in, we decided to make it a home and that was literally a month before Zahier, and I got married. We moved into this house. So, for the first month, it was just myself and Deiyyan, my son was living here because we weren’t married yet. We’re not going to live together, and it was a very specific, conscious decision that we made, but the day we said our ‘I dos’. When he moved in, it was, it became our home and that was one of the things …
RL: What makes? How did you do that? What makes a house a home?
IG: It’s not the stuff, it’s the hearts that you surround yourself with. Because when I moved in here, I literally there’s only two of my siblings that I talk to now, today still, my sisters, two of my sisters, they came to help me, uhm … Their kids came to help. I had two or three friends who popped in to help us move, clean, pack everything right. And at the end of each night, I think after a week when we were still unboxing things and, you know, packing things where we wanted, that was, that was that warmth, it felt like, ooohhwee! Goodness, that hug that you could just feel, that was for me, the home in it, the people that we surrounded ourselves with, the people who, who loved us and who we loved in return and yeah, made it beautiful. So, however small the space is, it’s still our home. It’s, it’s all we know to be, in fact.
RL: And you, you also choose to stay in Mitchells plain and, uhm … I gather that part of the reason is that you actually want to change perceptions, of how the outside world look at a place like Mitchells Plain mhhh?
IG: I mean, to be honest. I’m not really doing it for anybody else but for myself. Uhm, it keeps me grounded to my community, to the people that I know, to the people, uhm … who have gotten me to this point in my career. Uhm, I’m grateful, for every single person that’s ever said a nice thing to me or about me. Similarly, if they ever said a nasty thing about me or to me, because that just fuels my fire even more. But, also to say to people that I do not need to live in a bougie neighbourhood, to have the job that I have, to have the success, my success, uhm … I don’t equal my success to anybody else’s, like, I can’t match it because, what I want from life is completely different to what the next person wants. So, for me it was just a point of, like yeah, I come from here, you come from here, you can be … The next amazing author, or you can be the next CEO, CFO or you can be the next uhm… you know, baker that’s on TV, it’s not impossible, so …
RL: You know that is, that is so important. Was it Beyoncé who said “if you can’t see it, you can’t dream it,” and you are living that, you are being a role model, making those possibilities real for the youngsters around you, hmm…
IG: I don’t feel comfortable with the term ‘role model’, uhm … oooohh! I don’t feel comfortable, because I too make mistakes, I too error. You know, some little ones, some big ones, I have colossal errors. But, you know, it’s neither here nor there, uhm … I’m just, again, trying to live my truth. I’m, I’m trying to say to people, that, your dreams are valid, and they are possible but it’s, it’s for you to get yourself out of a scenario. Look, I grew up in Westridge, which is probably thee most bougie of Mitchells Plain areas to live in, I live in Rocklands right now, uhm … where, uhh … gangsterism, drugs is rife. But I still, I teach my children that what you want, you come here, you ask here, and when you can’t get it here, it doesn’t mean that you go out there and find it for yourself or take from somebody, you know? So, I am trying to teach little life lessons, I am trying to educate my son on the value of money, uhm … and, that’s gone down really well during lockdown, uhm … he’s actually been amazing because, for a long time, he was the breadwinner in our family, uhm … Our 12-year-old son, because he was the only one who had money, so he had to literally go down to the corner shop and buy milk. And, its’s tough, but you know what, here is my reality. In my household, I am the only working person. My husband, he does VIP protection and he deals with mostly overseas clients, and with lockdown, from the day lockdown happened, all his work throughout the year was cancelled …
RL: Shoo …
IG: And that was, you know. You know, when you think ahead of the year, when you dream big, like renovations, we need to sort this out, maybe get a new car. That was all brought to a screeching halt. And, it was literally us looking through what we have in our cupboards … going, we are not gonna survive. And, thank God for great friends and family members, who kind of helped us along, and our son also, with his, with his pocket money. He’ll wake up every morning and go … Mom, do I need to go and buy bread? I’m like, bread and milk, boy. And he’ll go into his room, he’ll scratch in his wallet and take his money, he’ll walk down to the shop, he’ll come back with bread and milk. And, it was one of those things, that, when my husband and I, when we were separated before we got married, it was one of those lessons I taught him. That, your money isn’t just your money, it’s our money, that’s how we survive. And so, the same goes with our household right, my money isn’t my money, my money needs to pay the bond, the medical aid, it needs to pay for the car, the insurance. It needs to pay for school fees, it needs to pay for music lessons, it also needs to pay for food. And sometimes, there is not enough for us to have the nice things. So, when we do have the nice things, we are appreciative of it, we enjoy it, and we can look forward to maybe having a nice time soon. But, it’s, it’s life, you know? Nobody else needs to know what’s happening in my household right now or how our struggles are going, but people need to know that we are all in it together, with COVID-19’s lockdown. I’m struggling as much as the next-door neighbour and that’s also that, that sense of Ubuntu. So, when I don’t have, I can go to my next-door neighbour and say hey, can you maybe give me two potatoes? And she’ll send me a packet of potatoes. And when I have, I will send her, if I bake something or make something, I’ll send like a couple of plates over and she’ll send it back with more stuff in the plate, so the plates, they swop over. It’s mayhem sometimes, but it works. It’s, it’s, it’s sharing the little you have, that will always ensure that you always have, for the rest of your life.
RL: Irma, it’s absolutely beautiful to end our conversation and I can only wish you … All of the very, very best and may we all come out of this and find … I don’t know, a new reality and keep some of the lessons that you’ve described, that we are learning, when we go back to normal.
IG: Yeah, and that’s one of the things that I, I initially, I couldn’t understand why people were complaining on social media like, oh my God, my kids are making me insane, please can they go back to school and this, that and the other. No cigarettes, no alcohol, uhm … I’ve seen it as an absolute blessing. I’ve always spent this amount of time with my kids because I’m home, you know, during the week. So, for me it’s like, I like this, I like laying on the couch watching kiddie movies with them or getting up to cook them three meals a day or whatever the case may be. So, for me it’s been an absolute blessing even more so, because when I gave birth to my kids, with my son I had four weeks’ maternity leave and with my daughter, I had three weeks’ maternity leave. So, I’m literally, during lockdown, getting all my maternity leave and then some, and I see that as a blessing, I see that, and I see the, the opportunities we have as family units to come together. Particularly, when we’ve had, you know, load shedding during this process and it, it just brings you closer cause, what can you do? You can switch on, you know, a little lamp or light a few candles, you can play cards and you can have conversations about your days and, you know, what bugs you, what are your dreams and aspirations for yourself and, and, and I think those are the real moments that … I think we are being humbled as a complete humanity, where we are taught to … slow down, to … smell the flowers, smell the clean air that we have, to appreciate the little things that we have like a roof over our head and a blanket to throw over your body …
RL: And to listen to each other, for a change.
IG: Yeah, I think that’s one thing that’s, that this lockdown brought us. That we definitely a need to be thankful for, because if we didn’t have this, I probably would’ve been busy at work, my husband would’ve been busy at work, the kids would’ve been either here or by their grandparents or over by my sister, and we wouldn’t have being spending that amount of time with them. So, I take this as an absolute blessing and that’s all I can see right now until anybody says anything that will change my mind, that’s, it’s gonna be and I hope that’s what everyone gets out of this as well. There’s so much happening in the world right now, with gender-based violence, with uhm … racism, murders, rapes, just so much. Just focus on the little things that you can change for yourself. I think that’s the important thing, uhm … you can only change in your household, in your community, you know, maybe in your province. If you can start by one small change and to, to keep that going and to, you know, encourage somebody else to step into the circle and to also try make a difference, and you’ll be amazed to see what the outcome would be. So, that, that’s my hope, that’s my hope for humanity, that we … we take this life lesson, we roll with it and stay positive, that’s the only thing I can suggest.
RL: Thank you so much and, thank you for that wonderful message that you leave us with, and thanks for sharing some of your very precious time. Give each of your kids a hug, uhm … from the rest of our team, and … have a wonderful lockdown.
IG: Thank you very much and same to you, and please keep safe.
RL: Yes, indeed … and, all the viewers out there, you go well, keep safe, stay sane. And, at some point, we will count our blessing after all of this, goodbye.
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