Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian

Grief And Loss

latest news & developments
Dear, Mom: Mombathise is an ascension song. Simphiwe Dana says it is for her late mother: ‘a song to tell her to go and rest and be at peace.’ Photo: Supplied
AFRICAN HIGH ART

Simphiwe Dana sings the room into stillness

Moya is her quiet insistence that excellence, faith and African high art can hold grief without spectacle

  • Lesego Chepape
6 min read
The tattoos on Zandile Simelane’s arms tell a story that most people can’t read. Hidden beneath the delicate blue ink of flowers and butterflies, dull white scars rise, remnants of the time when cutting herself seemed like the only way to express how much she was hurting. (Bhekisisa)
ACCESS TO CARE

Cutting: Why teens turn to self-harm when they don’t have words for their pain

For some teenagers, emotional pain manifests as deliberately cutting, burning, hitting, biting, scratching or picking at their skin

  • Tanya Pampalone
  • Anna-Maria van Niekerk
  • Jessica Pitchford
  • Mia Malan
  • Yolanda Mdzeke
  • Thatego Mashabela
  • Justin Barlow
  • Jeannine Du Preez
8 min read
Medical school prepares our future doctors to save lives. But with death being the endpoint for all of us, shouldn’t we be talking about it? Photo: Maria Luísa Queiroz/Unsplash
BIOETHICS

Let’s talk about death and dying

Medical school coursework includes teaching Western medicine’s standard ethical principle including discussions about patients’ rights, but what is not talked about is what death…

  • Heidi Matisonn
7 min read