'I can't believe Pearl is gone, she still had more to do, more to give ... it wasn’t her time'

She is gone. Just like that.

I had known Pearl, Sowetan's executive editor, since the early ’90s. She arrived at Rhodes University a couple of years after me, and like me, she studied journalism. Back then, she struck me as someone who often seemed lost in thought: there but not quite there, as if she were already thinking beyond the present moment, beyond the small-town buzz of campus life. She was quiet, but never cold.

Years later, we met again in the Business Day newsroom, back when Times Media Limited still operated from Diagonal Street, in that iconic diamond-shaped building in the Johannesburg CBD. The day she came in was heavy with recent loss. Mduduzi ka-Harvey, our friend and colleague, had just passed away in a car accident, and there was a funeral that weekend.

Dianne Games, our news editor then, told Pearl to come back on the Monday. When she did, she got the job; filling the very gap left by Harvey’s sudden death. I believe she took over from me as night reporter, though not for long. She tried a beat or two – crime, general news, politics – getting the lay of the land, testing her footing. Then a copy-tasting position opened up, and she put up her hand.

I remember thinking she was making a mistake. I told her so. It was a stressful and often overlooked position, wedged between the editors and the sub-editors. But Pearl had a sense for where she was needed. She had seen something I hadn’t. She stepped into that role and quietly became central to the production process: trusted, steady, a kind of quiet fulcrum.

When the deputy news editor position became available, she was ready for it. She got it. She never made a fuss. But she earned her place. Her rise was not loud. It was steady. Her ascent also coincided with the arrival of a new, progressive management that saw her potential immediately.

At the time, I was spending most weekends in Orlando West Extension with friends. It turned out Pearl lived just a stone’s throw away in Phefeni, on the way to Meadowlands. She was staying in a backyard room on the property at home then, and I’d sometimes visit. I had just got a car, a Toyota 150i Sport, that I was very proud of and we’d head out together as we had in our Rhodes days. But she had grown.

Her conversations were about responsibility now. She was saving to buy her mother a house. She was helping take her sister, Lerato, through university. I was stunned. Inspired, even. I remember going home after one of those visits and deciding to extend my parents’ house. That was Pearl’s influence. Quiet, but far-reaching.

In 2003, I left Business Day for The Star. Not long after, she invited me to a housewarming at her new flat across from Southgate Mall. She had moved up – literally and figuratively. Later, we bumped into each other at a traffic light in Orchards, south of Johannesburg. She rolled down the window and greeted me with that easy smile of hers.

She told me she was then at Absa, working in corporate affairs and communications at a senior level. I remember being struck again by how far she had come, and how quietly she had done it. Then time passed, as it always does.

In 2015, I returned to Business Day. Some years later, I stumbled on an old photograph from the early 2000s. In it: Pearl, the late Sibonelo Radebe, me and my first-born, Pearl and her son, Tshiamo, and other former colleagues. I took it to the office and pinned it beside my computer. Something about it felt grounding. It was also emblematic of a brief time in SA’s newsrooms post-apartheid during which there was a preponderance of optimism and positive vibes everywhere you went.

A week or two later, it was announced that Pearl would be rejoining Business Day. I was glad. We were older then, more settled. I had stopped drinking. Our friendship picked up again, this time on firmer, quieter ground. We talked more, laughed more. I apologised once for having been a bit of a handful in my younger days, especially to my editors. She brushed it off with her signature laugh. She was gracious like that.

That return meant a great deal to me, more than I probably ever told her. I made her a copy of that old photograph, laminated it, and gave it to her. She appreciated it. These small gestures were never lost on her.

In recent years, things became difficult for me. My professional life turned turbulent. There were challenges, and many turned away. But Pearl didn’t. She remained kind. She offered words of encouragement when they were hardest to come by. She checked in, gently, at moments when others fell silent. Just last week, I thought about her. I considered calling. But I postponed it. I regret it deeply now.

Pearl’s death has left me shaken. I cannot believe it. I don’t want to believe it. She was still too young. She still had more to do, more to give, more to witness. It wasn’t her time.

In this city that swallows so many of us – under deadlines and debts, in traffic and turmoil – Pearl moved with quiet conviction. She wasn’t flashy. She didn’t fight for the spotlight. She just showed up and did the work. She earned respect without asking for it.

She was, quite simply, good. The kind of good that doesn’t make noise but makes a difference. We’ve lost a colleague. A friend. A sister. A mother. But more than that, we’ve lost a steady presence. And those are the hardest to replace.

May her family be comforted. May her children be surrounded by the same kind of grace she offered the world.

My Pearl, rest in peace and in power. – SowetanLIVE