At the start of January 2022 Andrew Swart was still living a long and active life that had included roles such as orphanage principal, anti-Apartheid advocate, teacher, son, brother, husband, father, uncle, mentor, Grandfather, psychologist, therapist, career counselor, coach, trauma counseling volunteer for the police, ethics architect for the Coaching and Mentoring Society of SA, friend – and GDad to all of the kids at Riverstone Village.
He was an active and valuable member of his community, fit and healthy enough to briskly walk a 2km round trip to the local shops just for a quick break. He had just started work on his memoirs which were intended to cover not only his personal journey, but a critical look the journey of South Africa through her colonial past and the Apartheid and post-Apartheid years.
On the 26th January 2022, while visiting Cape Town, he suffered a severe stroke that left him right-side hemiplegic, and unable to find words – which he describes as having a ‘broken telephone’ game going on inside his own head.
When Andrew had his stroke in Cape Town, I was blessed to be able to phone him pretty much every day as well as visit him twice. During this time he spoke to me a lot – and some of it I was able, with great patience and focus, to understand and check back with him to confirm that I had understood. The first and most beautiful message that he worked hard to share with me, was his epiphany that now that he can no longer give and be useful, he is still lovable. From these conversations this song was inspired. A few weeks later, he drew this first drawing. When I asked him to tell me about the drawing, there were a few phrases that he repeated, so I asked him if we should title the drawing with the most repeated phrase. He emphatically shook his head, tapped the paper in the left corner and repeated one of the other phrases he had spoken. The title of this first drawing, in keeping with the theme of the song, is Long Love.
Andrew was always generous to a fault – with the result that he recently lived very simply and does not have savings to fall back on now that his medical and care expenses have rocketed along with becoming unable to earn anything through his counseling practice.
Andrew is a life-long art lover, now grieving the recent loss of his brother Dan Swart, an inspired artist and mentor of countless young artists and photographers. It makes sense for Andrew’s new care needs to be supported by the sale of art – on terms that also bring income to artists during this difficult post-pandemic time.
Thank you for joining Andrew on this journey of life which can be – if we choose – a journey of long love.
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After this was written, before it was launched, Andrew passed away on the 1/09/2022. The journey is now ours, to continue – long life, long love, passing the baton. May the artwork/s you choose bring you joy, and a reminder of the precious fragility that is yours to celebrate.