Sesona's memory lives on

PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - Although it has been said that time heals all wounds, the pain following the loss of her eight-year-old daughter Sesona, who was brutally murdered a year ago, remains a heavy burden for mother Binnie Bhayibhile to carry.

"Every day I still expect her to walk through the front door and tell me about her day at school," Bhayibhile said after a wreath-laying ceremony in Sesona's memory on December 7, exactly a year after she was killed.

Several Plettenberg Bay residents and other role-players conducted the ceremony at Poortjies in Plett, where they erected a bench overlooking the beach and planted a tree to "keep her memory alive". The bench and the tree were placed near where Sesona loved to play with her family and friends.

Sesona went missing on Sunday, December 7 last year after playing with friends near her home in Bossiegif.

After extensive search operations an 18-year-old neighbour handed himself over to police and pointed out where he had hidden the young girl’s body.

Lulama Candani subsequently pleaded guilty to rape and murder, and was sentenced in the Western Cape High Court last month to 21 years behind bars.

"Since her death I’ve been so busy making sure that justice was served and constantly going to court that I didn’t give myself a chance to work through the pain. At the ceremony, everything just hit me."

"Hearing her classmates sing her favourite song and seeing their little faces, brought so many memories flooding back," the grieving mother said.

Sesona’s classmates from Formosa Primary School attended the ceremony and honoured her memory with her favourite song "Saggeus sit in ‘n vyeboom", and spoke fondly of their friend who was "taken to the angels too soon".

Bhayibhile said the loss was extremely difficult, especially with the festive season on its way. "Sesona just loved Christmas, it made her so happy. She would put on her best clothes and ask me to take her to see Father Christmas. I wish I could have another Christmas with her."

She said she missed her little girl "so much". "Not a day goes by that I don’t miss her and my heart doesn’t ache. I think about her all the time and sometimes wake up in the middle of the night longing for her, so much so that I lay awake for hours."

It was also the reason for choosing these words to be engraved on the plaque on Sesona's bench: "Our darling little girl taken too soon, there was not time to say goodbye. Time slips by and life goes on, but from our hearts you are not gone."

"I trust that people who sit on this bench will not be sombre, but that they will enjoy sitting there looking out over the beach. That they will know that love didn’t end when this tragedy struck," her uncle and Bitou councillor Phaki Mbali said.

The ceremony was attended by several family members, local police officers including the investigating officer in the case Warrant Officer John Nomdoe, Bitou mayor Memory Booysen and members of the anti-child abuse group Green Hearts.

"The Bible says that heaven is made for children and this is easy to say for us as we do not bear the pain of the Bhayibhile family. We can say all the most beautiful things, but at the end of the day this act was an uncalled for one that robbed these parents of a child," Booysen said.

Plettenberg Bay police station commander Colonel Nolan Michaels said the incident reminded him – especially now during the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children campaign – of the police’s responsibility to be watchmen and to ensure the safety of "Sesona and all the other children in our community".

"The life she lived also serves as a reminder about how short life can be and how valuable each moment is," Michaels said.

View a photo gallery here.

Bitou mayor Memory Booysen conducts a wreath-laying ceremony in Poortjies in honour of eight-year-old Sesona Bhayibhile who was murdered in December last year.

Sesona Bhayibhile's mother Binnie became very emotional during a wreath-laying ceremony on Monday, December 7 in honour of her daughter who was murdered by a neighbour last year.

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