Connie Ferguson opens up about the loss of her husband

she graced our television screens for many years playing the formidable garabo morocca on Generations a character that's many still call her by and after leaving the Soapy in 2007 Connie Ferguson and her husband Shawna went on to start their own television Company the actors and executive producers dominated the television industry making and starring in their own hit shows with a blissful marriage close-knit family and soaring careers their lives were turned upside down when Shauna Ferguson passed on in 2021 she sat down with us to talk about loss getting back to work and future projects Connie Ferguson a good afternoon to you thank you so much for availing yourself for us thank you thank you for having me how are you thank you I'm fine I'm blessed yeah yeah I mean I think maybe I ask in the context of and and I'm sorry to just get straight into it right like I think the last time we were you officially anywhere it was um at the passing of of your husband and and maybe that's why we ask how you're doing how the girls are doing how the children are doing yeah yeah I think seen um close to 17 months now since show passed it's been quite the journey we're still going through it I'm still taking one day at a time putting one foot in front of the other but the girls have been strong I think as a family we've really just been there for each other we've cried together we've comforted the week when they are weakened being strong for them and the other way around but God has been good um I think just with with prayer and hearing friends and family praying for us as well um we have managed to stay strong in spite of it all yeah and you know nothing is a life-changing moment than a loss of a loved one because it stays with you forever it changes the core of Who You Are the thing is we know that um death is natural right it's it's our way we are going there we just never know when um and you know when you're a young couple you're not expecting it I mean it's the last thing on your mind I mean you you're dreaming together you're planning together you're building together and that's literally like the last thing on your mind that when it happens it completely disorganizes you I completely you don't know where you don't know what to feel even I mean besides the pain you literally don't know what to think you can't see beyond that moment and I think it it took me a while being in that in that space of who am I without show because you know he and I were so close um I literally joined at the hip and I mean even today just trying to live physically without him is is a big adjustment I'm adjusting baby I mean every day there's something that I wish I could do with him um and he's not there and then I have to reorganize myself adjust myself and go you know what he's not here I know he's here in spirit um I can do this I have to keep you know talking myself I can do this I can do this um and yeah I I yeah and almost three years later I'm I'm here and you know I don't know if you would be comfortable please to maybe revisit that time um 17 months ago when he started to fall ill was there an indication you know did you get a sense that something is wrong yes we know that you know it was a covid-19 um related illness that was there an indication did you get that sense because sometimes it's like a death happening fast and you're like oh my gosh why but if it's something that has been progressively coming along you're like okay what are you trying to show us yeah we both got sick at the same time um I was also very sick and you know he was strong for me and you know seeing how he was strong for me I obviously thought my husband was strong you know um and then I think I was like a week in he started getting like his symptoms just started getting worse um I think he struggled more with his breathing than anything else and and we did we did little things together we would take walks think I just had to walk a bit further than what he could but we tried to do everything right according to to what we knew and I don't know what happened with show and I really I I don't know because he was a healthy guy so on the so he was diagnosed on the 26th um of June on the 3rd of July he was admitted um into hospital because that I think he he was really struggling with his with his oxygen levels and that first week was was very hard for him especially because he's such an independent he was such an independent person but you know I we both had so much faith that he he was going to come out of this you know it was 19 we know a lot of people didn't make it but he was strong he was healthy he was young we really thought um he would pick this thing and we spoke about it all the time that we were going to beat person you know and kept saying to me maybe we're going to beat this and it was a weird thing you know we're gonna beat this and then the next Friday he was discharged so he kind of got better so he had covered pneumonia um so when his symptoms improved they discharged him the following week Friday after the third um and that night I mean I think I'm I think I'm so traumatized from that night after he was discharged from from hospital because he he was strong so and he didn't he didn't like the hospital show so to be honest I think he also pushed to he felt strong enough to go home um I don't know exactly how he felt but you know he put on the front that he was strong enough to come home um that was the longest night of my life because we were struggling with um so I literally had some money to monitor his his oxygen because he he was still on high flow oxygen even even at home um so I couldn't treat him with the with the oxygen concentrate thing um so I I needed the cylinders because he was on high floor that night he just got progressively worse like literally I was I was looking at my husband fading away in front of me um kept calling the doctors that night to say you know what I'm not comfortable I don't think this person is okay I don't think he should have been discharged and only the next morning that they come through and readmitted immediately but I think that might settle back 100 steps really because after that it was literally all downhill from me is literally our downhill from there and then he was in hospital for for a month of which he had been intubated for two weeks yeah so to me such a very intubated that's that's what we lost him um I still can't stand the sound of Hospital machines because I literally lived there I mean I used to go remember I was also still recording so I wasn't strong I wasn't sleeping I wasn't eating I just I I literally lived at the hospital um so it wasn't sudden um I literally saw him although we were hopeful the whole way and praying the whole way and because he was a fighter when doctors think when doctors thought can you today you can go just sit with him because might be his last day might be his last so we have so many of those um might be his last day moments and he always made it through to the next day and made it through to the next day and that gave us hope and because I believe so much in prayer you know we we believed that you know what um whatever is happening here I don't know gorgeous is trying to tell us something um this is probably going to be Show's biggest testimony and uh you know I mean that I was holding on so much to that that we're going through this um we have to go through this because it's a test and there's a testimony to be told from this experience but my expectation was that it was going to be his testing um and not me talking about plus and how I'm dealing with it and coping with it and how the family is and how I am this wasn't supposed to be the story my firstly Papi and you know like God works in such mysterious ways um where what was supposed maybe have been his testimony through you but testimony and the message will read somebody who's going through perhaps a similar situation with you and is wondering through this healing Journey where do I even begin because that in and of itself is something quite difficult yeah um I think it's a it's a process and it's continuous one day you feel like you've got this the next day you crumble it's like what the hell you know um so I think grieving is ongoing and you you just literally learn to to live with the pain and not let it decapitate you um and not let it stop you from moving because life has to go on you know um I still have Ambitions I still have a company I need to run I still want to be able to employ the number of people that we were able to to employ with show and even more you know um I still want to keep that Legacy going that there's there's a lot still to be done it's it's just for me I think unfortunate that I find in myself in a position where I feel like I have to do it alone although I have a lot of support around me it still feels Alone um what I'll show but I know he's my biggest Angel and I feel him a lot I feel him a lot I know he'll always be with me and for me that that's very comforting yes I want him here physically because I'm I'm used to us being like this but he's not here so I I have to do what what I have and just know that God is God and God is good and he would never let me suffer in vain that there has to be I may not know the answer to that now or tomorrow or the day after but there has to be a reason for all of this how did it come about that you started working together and you build together it didn't actually start that way um so she was born in Botswana we met angelberg he was in I.T sales and management so when we got married he moved to Johannesburg still continued with I.T but on the side he was very interested in entertainment so he started managing me as a side job and I think just observing and seeing how passionate he was about the industry and actually how much he knew about the industry I thought you know what I have a partner here I have someone that can build with me so he slowly also went into acting and had a couple of rows in different Productions and when I left Generations after I turned 40. I think for me I wanted to take a bit of a sabbatical while we were starting furnace and poems together but in the world came about and that was the first show that we both starred in we were two years in the world and then and I think that's that's when you know because we learned so much on the production and just a different way of shooting soap and telenovelas and I think that the talks that we used to have and the excitement that we would have when we were talking about what we wanted to do with films and phones um and after the world I think we saw the opportunity to really focus on our energies into our production company and it coincided with with the channel and then see magic being launched and they were looking for new producers new productions and we pitched our first drama series to to event some major crop for and Rockville was some dancers first drama series and focus on films first production ever and that's how we started I mean as a pair we were great as husband and wife but we were great as business partners as well he was my biggest friend you know oh my God he was my biggest friend there was just nothing I could not do with that man like I I I he and he made me feel that way you know he made me feel like there was nothing I couldn't do he literally made me feel like I should it's a pity you can't say certain words on television but he literally made me feel like I was the world like I I was everything you know and and that gave me so much confidence to to have not only a partner that was brilliant on his own but that really believed in my capabilities um and my brand you know when you saying that right now one thing that comes to mind is I can only imagine the kind of father that he was to your girls because when you talk about how much he loved you and how much he believed in you and thinking so your girls saw the blueprint they saw the template right of how they should then be treated yes that's hard for them because and I know they say the jokes about it all the time that oh my goodness Dad where the hell am I supposed to find the man that is like you you know so her standards are very high and rightfully so they should be um so I think what I'm grateful for is they know what love is because they've seen it firsthand they know what to accept for themselves and they know what not to and I think they are okay with it um not to say one cannot compromise or but they know not to settle I think and then going back to when you guys were working together I mean you you did mention that you know um now you have to move you have to in the sense of picking yourself up again being strong enough to get back into the saddle and starting to to work um how's that transition like I mean you know happy also we hear a lot about how women should mourn especially black men women how we should mourn and how you should be draped in whatever color and you should stay in some dark corner for over two years Etc and so how is that transition getting back it was difficult one because I've always been a working woman I've always been a and I'll say a breadwinner not because my husband wasn't the breadwinner but you know we both support extended family both supported extended family so I've always been a working woman um so when when show passed I I respect tradition I like to observe tradition as far as is possible and I'm deliberately using those words because with the Modern Woman or the working woman the working mother with all these responsibilities we don't have the luxury of sitting at home and crying ourselves to sleep every week minute of the day sitting in dark Corners we do not have those luxuries what I did do just for myself and this was a self-dest I mean I discussed it with my mother-in-law um that I'm gonna have to go back to work soon um but I wasn't strong in the first month at all so I took a month off work um just missed myself a bit I'd lost a lot of weight um and also just I think to process everything that had happened because I think in the in the moments that it was happening I was literally because I was a part of it I wasn't really processing anything I was just going with it and I so just that month to process and and grieve and cry and put myself up and there was there was Zero strength there was no strength at all um the month passed I had to pluck up the courage to go back to work because we were shooting the queen and when show passed we were supposed to start shooting Kings of joburg all scripts were done um so literally we were supposed to to go into pre-production like I think three weeks later so I went back to set um because that first day was very strange because when I hadn't seen my cast and crew since um since after the burial because most of them came and he has some came to see me at home um but it wasn't the same so I I stepped I mean I prayed so hard that morning before I went to work uh just for the courage to not fight and just start the day and more importantly just get through the day um so I got there they were all waiting for me and you know I could see on their faces to answer 20 of will she be able to do it um do you know when people are looking at you like you're so fragile like you you're about to break any moment that was hard for me um I remember I I walked in first of all I didn't even know if I had to say something as little speech you know because we all lost right we all lost I mean I walked in and that's my tongue was tired completely and he said good morning to everybody they were all standing there just waiting for me and then I just said let's work we went on to set we shot the first scene after the first scene was in the crane then I called my people and we had a conversation about what had happened and me being back on work and just me reassuring them that it's tough but I'm okay um we're going to do this not only for show but for ourselves as well because that's what he would want the show goes on and that that's where we termed that the show goes on um phrase that The Show Goes On he he would want us to keep our heads up and keep moving and keep working and keep the Legacy going and it speaks to your relationship with your husband right and so how you mourn him is like telling us how you lived and like he's saying he would want you to keep your head up we we laughed so much about an overshore instead of crying over him on set because he was such a big personality that that stayed with us and that is what everybody remembered about you we wouldn't get through the day without talking about him so he literally was still part of that production just not physically being there you know because one of my directors Andrews goes oh this is sure would love this you know and we'd all get excited and go about how she would feel and so he somehow this guy is tricky somehow managed to stay part of everything even though he's not here but you know he he was that amazing of a person but even that right because now the queen has come to a close now in January 2023. that must have been quite difficult it was hard um first of all just just our last day on on our last shoot day in fact that that final month of shoot because then we were getting rid of so many characters and usually when we say goodbye to a character or an actor we'll be together right and thank that person and wish them well whatever but we'd always do those features together I started doing these speeches with with my director who's greater I have rather than adore him but it's it just felt like a different space for me it made me miss him a lot because now I was like sure I'm doing this on my own now I'm so used to doing this with you so the same when when we we formed the very final scene of of the queen and I had to address the crew and everybody else to say you know this is this is the end of this but it's not the end of us because there will always be something else that comes up um and the whole team was like so positive and whatnot and it's funny I I believe in science and do you know that clouds just did something amazing in that moment and for me it said he was part of that moment um and he was there and for some reason it Felts such an effect felt really good that you know the team was that strong on that day nobody was falling apart or feeling sorry for themselves and everybody was just positive and it gave me a lot of Courage really to see my team like that um and then on Friday when the final episode TX it was real for me it was like I I was grieving all over again um because this baby that I had started with show you know that what I needed in that moment was him sitting next to me holding my hand us watching that final episode together and him saying to me maybe I'm so proud of what we have done you know in me saying to him you should be proud my love you know um I I needed that physically I know spiritually he was there but I just I needed a different kind of connection with him on that day that day was hard for me I'm not even going to sugarcoat it see him again because you've mentioned seeing him in the physical right so if mudimi were to Grant those impossible wishes you know like some of us singing if he was here and and and you could talk to him what would you tell him so here's the thing about my husband and I um I think we we were so transparent with with our feelings whether we were feeling good at the time or bad at the time um we always talked honestly to each other and one of my biggest Comforts is that nothing was left unset with sure even when he was on his hospital bed I remember the last time I saw him before they intubated him that day that day he had the seat I don't know if you know what a CPAP mask is it's it's the most horrific mask it looks painful as hell and just breathing through that thing seems like torture and he he had that that team the C5 mask and I could tell he was struggling you know um I was sitting at his his um at the end of his hospital bed and I was just massaging his feet and he he was just looking at me and he wasn't well he couldn't speak obviously because of that mask and that moment it just came to me to say to him you're my soul mate and because of that mask it was so tight he couldn't smile physically with his mouth but he smiled with his eyes and he just said you know like you're my soulmate too that was our last physical communication um what would I say to him now that I wasn't ready for him to go um that I still don't understand why he had to go um thank you for teaching me to pray because that is what has seen me through so if if you didn't have the foresight to get me into that space of believing um of trusting the Lord um honestly I don't think they'll be here I don't think I'd be here ma'am can I say it again you look good you look really really good because we've been following you also online and we're seeing the work that you're putting in and it's it's encouraging right even for somebody who doesn't even know or have an idea of what is happening um there is something exciting that you are working on because you did mention early on that you're a working woman and something that he it was a pet project for him she understand it and it became even bigger than him and now if you are continuing right with it so tell us a bit more about that um so I said earlier that before he passed we were supposed to start King September 2 um scripted everything was ready all the scripts finalized approved like literally ready to go into pre-production and then we got sick and we lost him so we paused everything I didn't even know that I didn't even know whether I'd have the strength to to continue with koj because it was a sure project man it was I mean he he was so passionate about this baby first of all I I didn't want to let him down um and I didn't know if I would have the strength to do it without him and because he was such a big part of it uh six months passed um the year started and I started having conversations with my other producer um survived and she said to me sis we can do this so we went back and got together with savior Los Angeles a writer for kings of joburg and he was very excited about how he could redirect the script right that not all was lost we still have a story here let's just put our heels together and see how we are able to honor Show's character on the show but the show still goes on I still continue with the show and we did that and and I think we we've managed to come up with a with an exciting story that people will be excited to watch we are excited for them to see Kings of job book 2. so it will be on your screens on the 27th of January um it's launching very soon very very excited about this project it was hard without him but at the same time I just had this thing that I was going to do this for my husband and for me I needed to it was it was you know we we believe that you don't start something and not finish it so it was that one thing that I felt I had to finish this some days were harder than others while I was rapping at the queen we were also shooting Kings of joburg so there was just so much happening in my life I didn't I didn't have time to think time to breathe time to do anything but you you'd wonder how is this woman standing so I think literally my my first holiday was this December your first holiday my first holiday since I lost my husband like this was literally my first time to just who's that did you enjoy it it's it's been weird um so we went to Dubai with the kids it just shows favorite holiday destination the last holiday that we had with him was Dubai so we kind of just wanted to trace all the things that we did with him you know do everything in his memory and also just as opposed to to help us heal and to test really if if we are strong enough to do the things that we used to do with him without him it was a gamble anything else we can look forward to just an exclusive yeah well Kings of German is hitting the screen soon so that's exciting um I'm currently unemployed so be unemployed I'm busy trying to create work for myself so please all the people that go when I have a production they they go but why is she acting in it I need to work this is where I create work for other people and for myself um but there are a few Concepts that we're working on and God willing uh one or two of them will go into production this year what you just said is important where people ask her but why are you starting in it yeah as well what is that about I don't know you know I don't know I think I don't know I think in this country people probably think a producer makes a lot of money far from the truth guys the money that you make is called a production markup and if your production does not meet its budget your production markup goes towards finishing the production and that has happened to us a couple of times um so the acting money that is actually your main salary right the production markup becomes the company's um salary because then you have all these other overheads that have to be managed by those funds so this girl needs to work because she can't be taking from the company she needs to be inputting into the company not taking so I wish I could explain it in a simpler way but I'm an actress who's also a producer I'm an entrepreneur I'm a business person that does not mean I cannot act because I'm produced sure is there a way of making it better maybe not easier but better like the entire system it's it's just management really it's money management it's being able to manage your business properly it's making sure that you're part of the value chain because the money that comes into a production is for that is for the production close up the conversation um for your for your children your wish for for your family your wish for for yourself you know we're going into we literally just started um the year yeah we've been through so many difficult years in the what past two three years yeah um your wish for this year My Wish for this year is I'm working on being happy like truly truly happy um that's my wish for myself and and that's all-encompassing whether it's it's healthy at work or happy at home um just being happy and at peace and content gratitude for me is a big thing I'm grateful for so much that I don't take anything for granted anything at all I don't take my life for granted I know every time I wake up in the morning and I take that breath that there has to be a reason I woke up that morning um so if I can just be happy and I want that for my children too um I want my children to know that the world is their oyster and they can be and do whatever they want um that they have my undying support always that I love them to death um I want them to know that their father will always be there with them and they do know that and that they have to live for themselves and not even for me not for mine I don't want them to worry about me and I know my little one worries about me a lot um and the city you know I want them to know that we are okay I want them to to embrace their own lives and have their own dreams and follow that with as much passion as they can master May the universe meet you at your point of need amen thank you very much for speaking to us your own Newsroom Africa it was a great pleasure to be in conversation with you thank you thank you for having me thank you so much

Channel: Newzroom Afrika

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Id: 4osu1_J0Mhc

Length: 37min 33sec (2253 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 21 2023