In edition 1366 of Soccer Laduma, Polokwane City's Puleng Marema narrated his heart-breaking story of how he lost family members, including his mother and uncle, but still had to find the willpower to carry on playing.
Having received the tragic news of his uncle's passing on the eve of a crucial match for the Rise and Shine as they were vying for promotion last season, the striker went on to play, and fortunately, he helped the Limpopo outfit to Mzansi's top flight.
As he aims to force his way back into the matchday squads at Polokwane after a difficult season of heartache and pain, while recovering from family tragedies and injuries, an emotional Marema reveals how the club he has dedicated his loyal service of more than a decade to has helped him to go through it all.
The Good
"As someone who has been with the club for so many years, I can't complain about the support I have received over the years. The club has been good to me through good and bad times. From the chairman, my teammates and everyone I have interacted with at the club, the support has been massive. From time to time, some of them keep checking with me to see if everything is fine and I am grateful for that. They understand the situation that I have been through," said Marema.
The Bad
"Even when I wasn't playing, I didn't worry much about it because I understood that the club wanted to give me some time to be ready mentally after everything I went through before I start playing regularly again. But due to games coming thick and fast in this league, there can never be enough time for anyone to be away for long, and I had to come back soon. The unfortunate part is that just as I was coming back and had my mind on playing again irrespective of the circumstances at home, I got injured again. There is no happiness at all, and I remember this other day telling my wife that all of this is too much for me, and I can't take it anymore," he said.
The Ugly
"But I did get professional help through psychologists and people like that. But for me, psychologists are also humans and I knew that they would want to tell me about the things I know anyway. The most difficult part for me is having the flashbacks of what happened the day my mother passed away. Those memories don't want to disappear from my mind. Like when I came back from training that day to find my mother dead, the neighbours were all out of their houses and watching as the hearse came to fetch my mother's lifeless body, and that has been in my mind since. That day, I had to tell my nine-year old son to go and play with the other kids because I didn't want him to see what was happening with her granny. But that didn't help because when he came back later, he kept on asking where his granny was. It took me three or four days to tell him the truth. Nowadays, nine-year-old kids understand about things to do with death, and I knew that when I told him the real story it was going to affect him emotionally. But I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me because I can't change God's decision," concluded Marema.
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