User talk:Nokufam

The story of my name: Nokufa.

Having known you all, I could see in your faces that you were all dying to find out more about my name. The name Nokufa means “Death” and because of the prefix ‘No….’ you can say ‘Mother of….’. I wouldn’t go that far, “death” it is. Oh well, here’s the story on how I ended up with it.

You know I never really cared about its meaning until I went to Durban for tertiary education. I was always disturbed when people asked my name and when I told them they would go like ouch!!.. and have scary faces. In most instances that would be the last time I’d seen them. I even missed a chance of having a “boyfriend of the year” because of my name.

But I am a very weird character myself, I actually enjoy scaring or spoiling people, I love scary ideas. Instead of going to the nearest Home Affairs Office to change my name, I took a mission home (my home is in Harrismith, FS) to my father for fact finding. Here’s what he had to say: (NB: My father was illiterate and a laborer at Spoornet).

“My dear child, when I got married I was only 20years, well the idea of being married itself was difficult to settle with. A year into my marriage, your mom got pregnant and I got even more confused because I did not know what to expect. When you were born, everyone asked me what name am I going to give you and I had no answer. You lived for the whole month without a name, just calling you ’umntwana’. After 30 days of thinking I still could not come up with a proper name for you, I had a list of all ‘nice’ names like Nompumelelo, Thandeka, Nobuhle, Thembisile, even Nompilo, but for all of them I could not guarantee their meaning (no offense to the name bearers). I could not be certain that you’d live what they say. That was for me a very scary part of name giving as I had already seen what was happening to some people with these ‘nice’ names. Just then something flashed through my mind for a second and it was enough for me to decide. You see my baby, you were not named after anyone and no one had died during your birth. I named you after the only living truth, nothing is manmade about death, it happens to everyone always at an unknown moment, it can’t be changed and it is the very reason we live. I gave you this name as a reminder that death is upon you every second and at every corner of your life, to encourage you to leave a good legacy wherever you go, to remind you that life is not just a gift from God but it is also an opportunity from Him to excel in everything you do, say or touch, by His Grace and for His Will. The rest, my girl, is up to you.”

After this explanation, I felt “WOW, BRILLIANT!!!” Before returning to Durbs, I went to Home Affairs to try and apply for the removal of the second name “Eunice”. It didn’t make any sense then to have it. I felt sorry for it as it was just overpowered by Nokufa and at that time I didn’t have interest in finding out what it meant.

I am a Christian and I don’t make plans in my life, I just live my name. I manage a “LIVE AS YOU GO” life because I understand that I’m just an end to fulfill God’s purpose on earth. I live from my heart not my mind and in my heart I have two compartments:

Not so pleasing events 1.	It’s not God sent. 2.	I don’t try to understand it. 3.	I don’t use my time and energy on it. 4.	I just don’t deal with it. 5.	I don’t try to forget it, it just dies a natural death, like many others. Pleasing events 1.	It’s Heavenly premeditated. 2.	It’s meant to happen at set targets. 3.	I’m just an implementer. 4.	I have to report back to the sender by spreading it as Good News. 5.	I don’t have to know it’s end. I am passionate about my name and as you can see, everyone knows me by it. This name makes the character I am, Spiritually, Professionally and Casually.

Nokufam (talk) 08:20, 18 September 2010 (UTC)