Setbacks, he tells me, that he’s determined to, “take like a man.” A man on whose shoulders lie the future of four children: a son in his second year of high school and daughters in class eight, seven and six respectively.
Prior to the attack, Fred tells me, he was in the process of constructing a four bedroom house in his rural home before his children, “caught up,” with him.
“As the only son out of seven children there are things I wanted to do in our rural home for mom and dad and my kids before they got older and their school fees demands got higher.”
But he’s not just struggling financially, two years on, trips to the supermarket remain difficult.
“They’re all laid out pretty much the same and although I haven’t gone into Westgate since the attack, every time I enter a supermarket I remember the clientele rushing to the uniformed staff, asking for a way out but there wasn’t any. So we lay down, only to make ourselves easier targets.”
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Author Tonier Cain said ‘where there is breath, there’s hope’ and so it is for Fred:
“Every time I’m tempted to feel sorry for myself I remember lying under that meat counter for hours, my blood pooled with the dead around me. I remember asking God to save me then I thank Him for not only getting me out alive but alive with all my limbs intact.”
And so despite the pain he experiences when he overexerts his leg, Fred walks us back down and out of his complex when it’s time to leave; resolute in his belief that, “provided there’s security, anything is possible.”
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