Going It Alone

Her husband’s death left her in a financial crisis – now she has advice for others in the same predicament

- Pieter Van Zyl

THE day her life changed in a heartbeat is imprinted on her memory forever.

Her husband, an entrepreneur in the fruit industry, was in Johannesburg on business while she kept the home fires burning in Paarl in the Western Cape.

She tried to get hold of him on the Friday but his phone went unanswered. “It was strange,” Amanda du Toit says. “Eion and I usually spoke six to eight times a day and suddenly there was just silence.”

Still, she was a busy mom of three young kids and there was plenty to do. Emma, the middle child, had lost a tooth and Amanda told herself to calm down and get her daughter to the dentist – Eion was probably just busy.

But when she still hadn’t heard anything by Sunday, she became frantic with worry. She tracked down the number of the guesthouse where he was staying and the owner said she’d check his room.

Fifteen minutes later Amanda’s phone rang. “I have terrible news,” the proprietor said. “Your husband died in his room.”

Amanda felt the bottom drop out of her world.

“My brain literally ached – I thought I was having a stroke or something. I didn’t know what to do. We’d been married for 17 years and had built a life together. Now he was gone.”

Eion (50) had had a massive heart attack and for three weeks Amanda was in such a state she couldn’t decide what to do about his body. In the end she had him cremated then geared herself up to start the admin involved when someone dies.

And soon it became apparent her husband’s death wasn’t the only shock in store. Eion had left her with practically nothing – he had no life insurance and no signed will.