Glenn Rousseau, 66, of Fish Hoek was a compassionate man with a heart “as big as the ocean,” according to his wife, Kyleigh.
He died from renal failure at False Bay Hospital on Tuesday May 21.
His death, Kyleigh said, was unexpected and came as a huge shock as he was admitted to hospital with a chest infection on Sunday May 19.
He was put on a drip and prescribed antibiotics.
She said she had visited him on Monday and he was disorientated but she was not overly concerned as, in the past, she had seen him being much sicker.
She received a call on Tuesday morning to say he had died.
“I couldn’t believe it and I was convinced that they had made a mistake and that it was someone else who had died. I said I had to see it with my own eyes,” she said.
Glenn was born in Johannesburg on June 15, 1957.
He met Kyleigh in Muizenberg in 2009, and they got married on his birthday three weeks after they met.
Kyleigh had just returned to South Africa after travelling in Brazil and had decided to make Muizenberg her home.
On the day they met she had just been to an internet café to print a joke and stopped to show it to Glenn. He had invited her for a drink and “they just clicked”.
“I immediately knew he was my person and that day I told him I was going to marry him.”
She said for the past 15 years they had been together 24/7.
“It has always just been us. He was all I had. I don’t know what I am going to do without him.”
The couple lived in Hibberdene for about two years before returning to Cape Town where they settled in Bergvliet and Glenn started his own business as a builder.
However, The Covid-19 pandemic dealt the couple a hard blow as Glenn could not work during the pandemic.
Kyleigh’s 12-year-old daughter, Gizelle, had also earlier died in a car accident and they were still “severely traumatised” and struggled to cope when the pandemic hit.
The couple sold what they could to stay afloat but at the beginning of 2022, they realised they had lost everything and came to Fish Hoek where they spent five months on the post office’s stairs.
In April that year, Glenn took over the care of the Garden of Remembrance from its former carer who had been employed through the City’s Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP), and the couple found refuge at The Net, a second-phase shelter that helps rehabilitate the homeless.
However, in September that year, Glenn fell ill and had a heart bypass and was hospitalised for five months in Groote Schuur Hospital following some complications which included kidney and urinary tract infections (“Garden of Remembrance restored to former glory,” Echo October 2022).
During his recovery, he was tube-fed while lying in foetal position, which resulted in his legs locking at a 90⁰ angle, and when he was discharged in December 2022, he was unable to walk.
In November last year, a good Samaritan, Chris Botha, started a BackaBuddy fund for the couple to help Glenn walk again.
The campaign had an overwhelming response and Glenn managed to see a specialist, received physiotherapy regularly, and was making “tremendous” progress (“Help Glenn walk again,” Echo November 16, 2023).
Kyleigh said he had been eating more regularly, had picked up some weight and had been determined to do his daily exercises
“He was becoming stronger every day and could lift himself from the bed into the wheelchair. It never occurred to me that he would never walk again. We were convinced that he would recover and that we just had to be patient as it was just a season in our lives.”
She said she was not surprised about the cause of his death given his history with kidney and urinary tract infections.
Carolyn Axmann, founder of The Net, said she had met Glenn at The Net in February 2022.
She said he was constantly trying to find ways to provide for Kyleigh and himself.
“I remember driving with him to Muizenberg to book a camp-site so they could move away from the post office. He shared stories of his years in the army on the border and also working overseas. Glenn was not afraid of hard work or challenges. Before he got sick, he worked tirelessly in the Garden of Remembrance. Our thoughts and prayers are with Kyleigh during this painful time.”
Glenn leaves behind his wife, Kyleigh, two children, Shantelle Potgieter and Stuart Rousseau, and two sisters, Karin Raats and Lynn Rousseau.
