Remembering Trevor Godfrey Gwaradzimba

----- Original Message -----
From: Fadzai Gwaradzimba
To: bongwi ; tichag2002@yahoo.com ; angus maurice dawnes ; Yolanda Ndlovu ; rujeko.hockley@gmail.com ; thockley@gmail.com ; alice makanda ; gwaradzimbavic@yahoo.com ; Ellen Gwaradzimba ; brian mutausi ; downesb@hotmail.com ; remembrance Sasha Gwaradzimba
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2009 3:25 AM
Subject: Remembering Trevor Godfrey Gwaradzimba
Dear Family,
As we celebrate Trevor Godfrey's life, I am plesased to share with you the messages of love below and in enclosed file. Thank you very much to all who sent in their thoughts and memories.
Remembering Trevor Godfrey, 19 January 2009
From Sasha, his son
Mzukuru Fari, aunts & cousinsI just wanted to say thank you all. It will be a year since my father passed away, but I will speak for my mother, my brothers and I...it still feels like just yesterday. We have come to learn a very hard lesson, that death is inevitable, permanent and painful. With daddy around, we still had handfuls to do to get by, now without him we have an enormous burden of loss and a challenge to manage the pain. Mr Godfrey Gwaradzimba prepared us for life, but not life without him...for that reason, we still search for answers and comfort...You would think at my age I would be ready to accept that life is not permanent, well I do understand that, it just does not make me feel any better. As we all reflect on our loss, I would like to share with you what we have lost (mother and sons): we have lost a lot of happiness and a source of it, we have lost fun and laughter, a man that went fishing for fun and in the process provided for a family, we have lost a man that took us to just about every corner of the country, we have lost a counselor, a man that pampered us, a man whose pride gave us a reason to wake up every morning and endeavor to make things happen. I had not seen my father for 7 years and I feel a profound sense of emptiness and loneliness now that he is not there for me to call...a day can not go by without me thinking of him. He could frustrate and appease in one instant. I could not sit and write about one occasion, his life was something I behold and am proud of and thankful for being a part of. I would never ask to trade the father that I had for another. Its particularly difficult to write about him. I appreciate all your help and will join you on the 19th of Jan in remembering a man that we loved unconditionally and miss badly. I wish you all well for the coming year.loveRemembrance

Remembering Trevor Godfrey
From Farirai, his nephew
Mai Fari told me that sekuru Taruvinga once said he was not going to be a driver because of narrow bridge which was near Magunje township.
Sekuru Trevor called in the middle of night saying "Fari I want you to come to Mutare and be my manager nokuti ndazoita mari,give me you bank account number so that I deposit busfare for you"
In hospital (Westend Clinic) sekuru said to mai Remember "whatever happens call Fari he will organise things he is organised" this statement still rings in my ears whenever I think of sekuru Trevor.
Yours In memory of sekuru Trevor

Farirai (14 January 2009)

Remembering Trevor Godfrey, From Tendai, his sister

· From the dawn of his birth to the set of his sunset -his death we honor him;
· From the missions you completed to your duties left undone we honor you ;
· From the time beyond your entrance into this earthly place to your entrance back again to the Almighty ,you touched many souls through your selflessness we honor you;
· From the moment you took the first steps until the moment of your departure you were our keeper and pillar of life we honor you;
· May the angels support you and watch over you .
So long son,brother, and uncle. ,your loving family.
Tendai


Remembering Trevor Godfrey
From Trevor Hockley, his brother in law
Nearly a year gone by and yet thinking of Trevor still makes me tearful. I wonder what quirk of fate led him to pick that name, maybe it was just chance but I like to think otherwise.
I remember, very clearly my first meeting with Trevor. He drove Fadzai down to Bulawayo in her car. We'd not known each other long and she was coming to spend the weekend with me. Trevor walked straight up to me and said: 'my sister seems to like you a lot, hurt her and I'll kill you!' He was big then and with that big voice of his, I was well scared. Who would have thought that such an introduction would lead to a lifelong friendship. But it did and I'm a better person for it. I have no brothers and Trevor came to feel like one. I've often tried to describe him to people and I always start by saying that he was the 'real deal, the real McCoy' and he was. The freedom fighter with the bullet wounds to prove it. The Revolutionary who didn't sell out. Not for him the lure of wealth and riches, but not afraid to use his position to give some government minister with an over inflated sense of his own importance, a good beating, even if it did cost him his job at the Parliament.

Trevor was a man of extremes, if it was worth doing it was worth doing properly whether that was getting wasted or gambling away all his money and anybody else's that he could lay his hands on. He most certainly wasn't perfect but then who is. He once told me that if he had to do it all over again, he wouldn't have gone to fight, but that was because so many people had disappointed him with their greed and lack of commitment to the cause that they had all originally claimed to believe in. The truth is that he would have done it all over again because he did it for the right reasons and in some ways he was doing exactly that right up to his death, spending his time with the street kids in Mutare.

Enough, my eyes are too full of tears to see the screen properly. A luta continua.

Trevor Hockley

"Remembering My Brother Trevor Godfrey"
From Fadzai, his sister
I remember that Saturday morning of January 19, at 10:30 am last year as if it were only yesterday. Even before the text message came from Fari, "Ambuya we tried, but I am sorry…" I knew already that something had gone profoundly awry. I had just fielded three calls to Ellen, to the Avenues Clinic nurse and Fari that morning, and was now on a call to Sis Tee 5000 miles away in Maputo, desperately exchanging notes with her and making plans to travel to Harare. "Tee, he is gone!" I remember hearing my cracking voice saying in the midst of this call after my husband showed me the text message and thinking: "You damn, fool, you are too late!" Too late to see that gap toothed grin he refused to mend and hear his booming laughter again. Too late to see him do the bum jive one more time to Tuku's latest hit or Dollar Brand's "Mannenberg" that he loved so much … This as he had done in his early teens, breaking hearts at Zvipani Township with his amazing ability to dance, charm and take charge and control of situations, no matter what the challenge. Too late to hear one more time his outlandish stories and glow in the shadow of his infectious joie de vivre. But more important, too late to be engulfed in that unspoken brotherly love that asked for nothing but gave back so much in return.

I have spent the last year revisiting our short life together, adrift and with a profound and crushing sense of loss and, yes, even anger and rage at myself. Did I do enough? Did I look out for my brother and make time for him in this tyranny of daily concerns, careers, family and all of it? Sadly, there are no replays after death and I miss my brother so very much, especially today. I am sorry that the plans he and I talked about in September 2006, plans for him and his family to visit us in The Gambia and come sailing with my husband in Belize are now on hold for ever. He was a part of my family and we loved him profoundly, laughed heartily at his escapades and, over the years, followed his life and that of his family and the three boys with pride and joy even though we did not see each other often.

The memories of my brother that I will carry in the coming years are of a man who wore his label as war hero and family man with pride and loved Zimbabwe, his family and life passionately. I will always hear his voice castigating sell outs, opining about David Beckham's last goal or Tuku's latest song or waxing lyrical about the best fishing spots in Zimbabwe or any subject for that matter. His vast and encyclopedic knowledge and interest in all things and passion for adventure, food and the good life was amazing. It's ironic that one who enjoyed life so much and had laughed at death in the battlefield could not in the end elude it.

The last time I was at Harare airport to bid farewell to Godfrey for the last time, I instinctively looked up to the balcony when I entered the arrivals hall. Since 1986, when my family and I left Zimbabwe, I had become used to seeing Godfrey's large frame and his all encompassing grin, arms draped casually around one of his sons, Sasha, Victor or Tanaka, with Ellen by his side. He was always there to meet me. "Muri right, tete? /"How d'y sis?" he would mumble as he hugged me. And this would be all he would say, leaving the talking to Ellen and me as he watched and sipped his whiskey in the course of the day. Later he would pontificate about politics, opine about the folly of Manchester United's last match or the brilliance of David Beckham and how Jesus was the first revolutionary. And the very last time I saw him alive in September of 2006, he talked about how Beckham had ruined his legacy by moving to LA, a mistake in his opinion. My heart stopped then as it will now in the future whenever I visit Harare airport. I will miss the loyal and loving brother and family man who never let me down and was always there to share the few times we spent together over the years --- keeping me a part of his family and, in a way, ushering me back safely into a place that was increasingly losing its hold on me, but one that he loved dearly and knew so very well and would always be part of him to the end.

As I picked up my luggage and trudged out of the airport alone, my mind went back to yet another poignant homecoming when my brother was still alive. Years back when I had returned home to an independent Zimbabwe in February 1980, he had been at the train station with Ticha to meet me. There he was, all of 23, fragile, implausibly young and too skinny to have been a freedom fighter and already a veteran of war stories that legends are made of. At his final send off, I was to hear those same heart stopping war stories with pride and awe--- stories that I thought he had exaggerated a bit to impress his sister… as his former comrades and friends sang , reminisced and recounted his exploits at the war front in the Gaza Province, talked about and showed me a side of my brother I knew absolutely nothing about: Trevor, the liberation war hero who wore this label casually as if all of us could simply get up and go and fight in our teens and not expect retribution or rewards. But I know that this was my brother and it's this selflessness and courage that I so admired and will miss terribly.

Trevor Godfrey had a way of breaking your heart one minute and making it soar with joy and pride the next. Quick to laugh, he was also equally quick to anger. Notwithstanding the hearty jovial persona we all knew, I think Godfrey was also very much an emotionally elusive and private person. He would never tell you what he needed but he was always watching out for others. I remember one evening in 1986, when my husband, Trevor, his name's sake, was fired by Dore and Pitt( the Rhodesian irrigation company that was offended that he behaved normally towards his black coworkers!) My brother drove into 24 Princess Drive, our home then, unannounced and with a sense of urgency. When I asked him to come in, he said he was not staying long, but had brought me something. From the back of the trunk, he brought out a huge box filled to the brim with beef. When I asked why he had brought it, he casually replied, "Don't worry, I will look after you!" I could not convince him to take some back and I was stunned that he thought we needed food, considering I earned much more than he did. But that was my brother, the family provider and protector, always on the look out for others and generous to a fault.

I did not visit my brother very often but I remember a visit that I made with Ticha to 18 Dobson Place, after I had moved to the United States. One Saturday, he drove us to Chimoa. In Chimoa, he was all fire and brimstone with his subordinates. As we headed back to Mutare, he suddenly asked his driver to change course. After an hour or so I looked up as he said: "There Sis , look!" And there was the mighty Limpopo River and above it, the Birchenough Bridge, one of the most beautiful suspension bridges in the world. A heart warming moment and a uniquely Zimbabwe savanna lovely late afternoon graced with hippos bathing in the mud, elephants sauntering about and giraffes gazing upwards into acacia branches. He had brought his sisters to see this without saying a word. On the way back, I casually mentioned that Chiluba who was then running for office in Zambia was posed to win, in fact it was inevitable, I said. I sensed the rage before the explosion: "How dare I say that? Did I not know my history? Chiluba was a small time crook and he would not win?" Incredible, the temerity of the man, I thought. Here I was with impeccable academic credentials in Political Science and International Relations and I knew what I was talking about. What's with the rudeness and personal attacks? Why does this boy never listen to anyone and can never bear to lose an argument? To keep the peace, Ticha and I kept quiet but you could feel the tension in the car. Needless to say, Chiluba won and a small time crook he proved to be later. But by the time we got home that evening, my brother was onto other things, his business interests, football, dinner plans and his mood expansive. We even stopped for photo opportunities and a drink on the way home. Today I remember that balmy summer day with such joy. For me, the Birchenough Bridge will always hold these memories of my brother , of a man who knew how to bring joy to others in thoughtful and subtle ways.


There are other times, but I recall this one particular time Trevor, my husband, Rujeko, my daughter, and I spent a weekend with him in Mutare when I was stationed in Malawi. Headed to Leopard's Rock for the weekend, we saw him walking and stopped the car and did an about turn and drove straight back to 18 Dobson Place, his home. Within an hour, he had arranged the presidential suite for us at the Holiday Inn in town and braai vlei plans at his home. Trevor, the fixer was very much in evidence. That night we partied, ate and drank ourselves silly and as we were getting ready to go to the hotel for bed, he announced suddenly that we were now ready for a night of gambling at Leopard Rock! It must have been well towards midnight when Ellen, Trevor and I piled up into the car, with his friend making up the convoy. It was misty and dark and quite slippery and my brother drove as if he were on a racing track –undeterred by the mist, jovial and full of tales. Thankfully, he let my husband take over the driving at some point in the journey and that night he made piles of money at first. But when we checked toward the wee hours of the morning, the pile was gone and plans to drive back to Mutare were very much in doubt. The next day, there he was ready for a round of Golf and, after lunch, we headed for the Golf course. Godfrey told us, that it was the first time he was holding a golf club since his caddie days way back in Karoi when he was a kid. That afternoon, we trudged along as he hit his stride, while we all fumbled with our golf clubs. A natural, he seemed to have been born holding a golf club. A year later, I was to bring him back his golf set bought by his son Sasha and I don't think he ever looked back. At his funeral, his golf mates came to speak to Baba. Again, I was introduced to a brother I did not know very well, but had glimpsed that lovely afternoon at Leopard Rock, Godfrey the avid golfer and man about town whom so many people from all walks of life loved.

My brother wore his label of the fun loving and adventurous person, war hero, comrade in arms, husband, father, brother and son proudly and fully lived the part. I remember him today as the strong family man who adored his Ellen and worshipped his sons. I remember him as a loving brother who was very much a part of my family in more ways than one.

It's too late to see him do the bum jive to Dollar Brand's Mannenberg. It's too late to let him know how much I cherished him and was so very proud of him. Fearless, articulate, smart and proud and with opinions on everything, I miss his fierce intelligence and regret that it's too late to debate passionately with him this our proud and improbable moment of Barack Obama's inauguration and hear him tell me that he predicted it twenty years ago! But I am lucky that in his noble, generous, elusive, and, yes often exasperating ways, my brother Trevor Godfrey has left me a rich legacy to draw upon and to learn from.
I will miss him to eternity.

Fadzai