Actor Mpho Sebeng’s mother Nomsa held onto a black staff at her son’s funeral service held at Rhema Church in Randburg, Johannesburg yesterday.
Sitting next to her husband Joe, on her lap was a Basotho blanket, which also covered her daughter Lebogang, as thousands of mostly young people came to bid farewell to the Collision actor.
These two items, Sunday World later established from Mpho’s uncle Sam Sebeng, are of sentimental value to the young thespian’s family. Sam said the Ring of Lies actor, who died in a car accident last Sunday, took them with whenever and wherever he travelled. “Mpho carried the staff and blanket every time he went away. He loved these two items. I guess his mother was honouring him by having these with her at the funeral,” Sam told Sunday World.
Music filled the auditorium with programme director Aubrey Poo doubling up to lead in song as the band belted out sing-along gospel tunes in between tributes.
The tributes spoke of a loving, respectful and hard-working Mpho, who was a positive role model to the young and old.
The more than 2 000 mourners joined Poo and the band in song as they sang hymns, creating a concert-like atmosphere, which elicited disbelief in some that the 31-year-old was no more.
For others, the music added to their sorrow with wails erupting among family and friends alike. Some smiled with their hands raised in the air as pictures of the fresh-faced actor looked back at them from the stage.
Others shook their heads as if refusing to accept that this was their final goodbye. When the choir from the Itshe Legumbi Apostolic Church took the stage to render a musical item before Lebogang, Mpho’s only sibling read her parents’ message, the musical tributes reached a crescendo.
As the choir finished its opening soothing chant and transitioned into full singing, hissing, shooing, and swaying, Nomsa got up with the staff still in hand and swayed to the song.
Dressed in an elegant, form-fitting number and a fascinator, she went up the stairs to the stage and joined her church’s choir. Her pain was palpable with each gentle sway of her hips and the tilt of her shoulders, which brought the staff forward. The choir followed her lead, taking cue from her sway to turn. Other women dressed in church regalia, who were not part of her choir went on stage to join her.
“Avulekile amazulu (the heavens are open)” sang the choir, turning when she turned and laid bare her pain on that stage.
Nomsa left the stage to take her seat again next to her husband. Reading the message from her parents Jo and Nomsa, Lebogang said: “We didn’t expect that we would be burying you so soon, son. Please promise that you will come visit us and tell us what happened.”
It was Tladi Morake, a family friend, in his tribute, who pointed out that Nomsa was burying her son on Mother’s Day eve.
Mpho was buried at West Park cemetery.
