Sister Samukelisiwe Shezi’s story reminds us that loss isn’t a life sentence (even when it feels like it) and that light can find us in the darkest times in the places we least expect—ourselves.
Johannesburg, South Africa (14 August, 2023) — It’s not easy to get back on your feet after loss has knocked so much out of you. In many ways, loss and its closest companion, grief, can feel like prison wardens enforcing sentences that almost seem life-long. However, what felt like the end of the road for one KwaZulu-Natal woman soon revealed itself as another, brighter path. One filled with a purpose of helping and healing.
Samukelisiwe Shezi was a bright BCom student at the University of KwaZulu-Natal over a decade ago. Everything was going according to plan for her to finish her final year and embark on some financial-related career path when one of the hardest moments of her life hit like a ton of bricks.
Her mother had passed away, and grief soon filled her heart and took her life by a chokehold.
Struggling with the new world where her mom was no longer a visit or phone call away, she sought help from a social worker on UKZN’s campus.
Something about the interaction with a person dedicated to serving others made her reflect on what she really wanted to do with her life and who she wanted to be, and she began looking into what she could do to be part of the helpers and healers the world can never have too many of.
This led her to a career in nursing; something she shares was the manifestation of a need to “work with people directly and help people.”
Two years after she would’ve finished her BCom, she embarked on the nurse’s noble path and finished her studies in 2016.
For the past five years, Sister Samukelisiwe Shezi has been serving the City of Johannesburg where every day, she gets to be part of unsung heroes.
“Sometimes I think of my life as the story of Joseph in the Bible. Something bad happens, but it births something good.”—Sister Samukelisiwe Shezi.
Of the path of help and healing she followed even though finding the strength to start all over again was worlds away from easy, her story reminds anyone struggling with loss that there will be good moments again. And proud moments. And healing. And moments where the loss is a part of your story, not the end of it.
“Be the brightest you can be, let people around you feel the warmth and share the light,” she nods to others.
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