Family traumatised by son’s suicide

Lumbidzani Dima, Chronicle Reporter
A FAMILY in Bulawayo’s Luveve suburb is traumatised after a 27-year-old family member committed suicide in their yard.

It’s not clear whether the man killed himself on Wednesday night or yesterday early morning but the body was found hanging from a tree.

When a Chronicle news crew arrived at the house located just near Luveve private clinic on Thursday morning, the police had just taken the body of the deceased, Arnold Tshuma.

The atmosphere was sombre as people appeared confused and pained. According to family members the body was found by the deceased’s younger sister.

Arnold’s mother, Ms Simephi Ndlovu, said everything seemed normal in the morning as she did her daily morning routine and went to work yesterday only to be called back after the tragedy.

“I went out through the gate but I never saw that my son was hanging on that tree because I never expected anything like that. My daughter called me when I was just entering PSMAS premises screaming and she point blank told me that Arnold had hanged himself on a tree in our yard.

I froze, I did not know what to do but I quickly came back with a lot of confusion in my mind only to find that it’s not a prank. It was true. He had hanged himself,” she said.

Ms Ndlovu said she is not aware of anything that was bothering her “bubbly” son but his favourite phrase in the past days were ‘you will remember me’. She went on to narrate her last encounter with her son whose last words were unknowingly more like a goodbye.

“I last saw him yesterday (Wednesday) at around 7pm when we were just talking and laughing with him fixing his pigeon cages. He would laugh and say ‘you will remember yazi mama’, his usual words these days. I asked him why he is saying such words over and over again and he just linked it with people going overseas telling me not to worry. I told him that he shouldn’t put it like that because it seems otherwise, he just apologised and said it again then laughed,” she said.

Ms Ndlovu said her son went outside the house and returned telling her that his pigeons do not want to get into their cage. He said he would leave them like that to avoid being late, where he was going.

“He refused to eat and his last words were, ‘don’t worry mom I’ll eat when I come back, you are my mother don’t worry about anything.’ He just laughed and went out and that was it,” said a teary Ms Ndlovu.

She said she thought he had gone out to sleep at his friends’ place as he usually did when they were ‘deejaying’.

“I doubt he even went out of the gate yesterday (Wednesday). I think he climbed the tree with his wire then, but I’m not sure when he could have hanged himself. I am just so clueless, in pain and confused about this whole thing. I don’t know about anything that was worrying him but “lizangikhumbula” was always on his lips,” she said.