This week has been a turbulent period for the Tembi family as they spent it mourning their beloved daughter Nellie.
The Daily Suns publication got the opportunity to speak to the family and this is what some of them has to say.
Her sister Mbali had th is to say: “Today we went to wash her and l tried to put makeup on her because she loved herself. She was a lady like that but what l saw was very painful.”
Zama who had the task to get Nellie from Cape Town to Durban is still reeling in shock. “Her untimely passing will have a long lasting impact on me and the rest of the family. I think all of us should take a page out of her book of life as she lived a full life filled with love, gentleness and honesty.”
Taking to Instagram for only the second time since her sister’s untimely death. TV personality Palesa opened up about how much the family misses her.
In his tribute to his daughter which was read by his friend Sandile Zungu, Nelli’s father Moses Tembe wrote:
“As Anele’s father, I categorically state that Anele was neither suicidal nor did she commit suicide. We must as a matter of priority deal with the scourge that bedevils our youth. Alcohol which is overused and drugs. Fellow South Africans we better wake up and smell the coffee, we have a serious problem with substance abuse.”
“I cannot allow an unfortunate narrative to go unchallenged, a narrative that irks me to no end … that is ‘Anele was chronically suicidal’. All I can say is, until Anele turned 21, not a single member of her family, my family would have associated her with suicide.”
“I knew Kiernan loved my daughter but their companionship needed more than love. It had to be premised and embedded on a Godly foundation.
Anele made me happy as a father, very happy. Anele was feisty, strong-willed some might say. She was single-minded in her pursuits, what others would uncritically call stubborn. Anele never minced her words, an attribute that would perturb her siblings, which she balanced by giving her absolute best to those around her.”
“In my deepest desire that my girl live to be who she wanted to be, I nurtured these Anele traits. For I truly believed that she had needed guidance rather than repression, persuasion rather than brute force,”