"Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying, and this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be…" Bob Mabena wrote on Facebook on Sunday, 9 August.
Never typing out the final word from the poem To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time by Robert Herrick.
The next day, it would be the task of Bob’s colleague and friend Given Mkhari, chairperson of POWER 98.7 and MSG Afrika, to speak the final word.
The radio legend had died.
Following a short sick bed, the recognisable voice of the radio legend had unexpectedly been silenced.
"It is true that our brother, our colleague, the legend Bob Mabena passed away this afternoon," Mkhari confirmed on air late on Monday afternoon – his voice notably shaky.
He had just been standing next to Bob’s wife Eucharist Hadebe, when a doctor in the ICU confirmed that the 51-year-old had died due to cardiac arrest.
The news of his death washed over social media like a crushing wave. Even though death looms closer now amid the pandemic, the announcement of Bob’s passing came with an aching discomfort that makes you grab your chest almost as if to feel if your own heart is still beating.
