EVERY morning for the past five years has started the same way. Over and over he’s had to learn the intimate details of a life that should be familiar to him: his own.
“You wake up and feel this place is yours but you don’t really know what’s going on,” Gerrie Kachelhoffer says.
Fortunately every morning brings another constant: the presence of someone whose name and face he can’t quite place. Then she introduces herself to him again: “I’m your wife.”
And for about an hour – as she’s done every morning since the traumatic incident that made him suppress his memories – Yvonne Kachelhoffer tells her husband of 26 years about himself, his family and his world.
“I make sure I wake up before him. As soon as he’s awake, I’m with him,” she says.
“Then I start to tell him that something happened to him in 2016 and that’s why he can’t recall anything.”
‘EVERY MORNING I HAVE TO TELL HIM ABOUT THE PANDEMIC, MASKS AND SOCIAL DISTANCING. IT’S A SHOCK EVERY TIME’
She tells him about their lastborn, Ansuré (3), and that he’s now a grandpa.
Gerrie (47) doesn’t recognise Ansuré, the late addition to their brood. He’s come to recognise his two grown-up daughters, Su-Mari (24) and Anneri (21) but, as with Yvonne (48), he struggles to put a name to the face.
Su-Mari, her husband, Warren Joubert, and their six-week-old baby, Isabella, live with her parents and she has to introduce herself to her dad every morning.
This story is from the 13 May 2021 edition of YOU South Africa.
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This story is from the 13 May 2021 edition of YOU South Africa.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
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