‘I Fell In Love With Her Soul'

He lost his daughter in Mauritius, then his son in a bike crash – but now Mike Vosloo has found a special someone to help heal the pain

- Jana Van Der Merwe

Tragedy had followed him like a black cloud. First his teenage daughter, Mundolene, died during a family holiday in Mauritius, then his beloved son Marnuwico was gone just less than two years later after an accident on his new off-road motorbike.

Mike Vosloo was still reeling with grief when he walked into the quiet pizza restaurant on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast.

Life seemed to have been stripped of all joy, the happy family he once cherished vanished like dust.

There seemed little more to live for – and then something remarkable happened. Mike laid eyes on single mom Danieta van der Spuy and her son, Danie (now 8), who were in the restaurant that evening. And slowly a sliver of light broke through the cloud and slipped back into his world.

“We’d seen each other around before but we’d never met,” says Danieta, a primary school teaching assistant who’d taught Marnuwico in Grade 3.

“I said hello to Mike and told him how sorry I was about his boy.”

Mike had noticed the attractive teacher when he dropped his son off at school but had never spoken to her before.

“But that evening he asked if Danie and I were by ourselves and said we could join him at his table if we wanted to,” Danieta says. “We started talking and haven’t stopped since.”

That was November 2018 and things went from strength to strength – so much so in fact that they decided to get married.

And for Mike life is very much worth living again. There’s a sizeable age gap between the couple – he’s 50 and she turns 26 next month – but it’s no obstacle, they say.