I MISS HER SO MUCH

When loadshedding meant they couldn't look after their little girl, they rushed her to hospital but it was too late 

- LESEGO SEOKWANG

SHE’LL never forget the first time she held her baby girl in her arms – a tiny human for her to love and nurture, no matter the challenges that lay ahead. 

But another memory will stay with Sunera James for the rest of her life too: a haunting one of her daughter clinging to her as she took her last breath. 

Sunera’s three-year-old daughter, Neyamiah Eaton, had WWOX syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that causes severe neurodevelopmental delays.

A few days before her death last month, she contracted a viral infection and needed an oxygen concentrator to help her breathe.

Sunera (37) and her husband, Curwyn Eaton (45), live in Bromhof in Joburg, which often had unscheduled and extended bouts of loadshedding.

On that fateful day in May, a blackout prevented Surena and Curwyn from charging their back-up power supply to run the concentrator and their back-up oxygen tank was almost empty. 

They rushed their daughter to hospital, but it was too late. 

The little girl isn’t the first and won’t be the last life to be lost due to the domino effect of loadshedding, but her name has become a heartbreaking reminder of the tragic impact of SA’s ongoing power crisis. 

Here Sunera shares her heartrending story, and opens up about how she’s coping with her painful loss.

I DON’T know what to say to people who ask how I’m coping. It’s hard to describe what I’m feeling. It feels like torture. I imagine this is what hell must feel like because there’s no cure for my pain. It hurts so much.