It's been seven years of marriage and they are still head over heals in love with each other.
Actress Phumeza Mdabe and her musician hubby Shota adore each other as much as they did on the day they got married.
The celebrity couple is celebrating their 7th wedding anniversary today. And to mark the special day, they took to their respective social media accounts to celebrate each other.
The actress expressed how thankful she was to have her hubby by her side all these years and Shota, whose real name is Mnqobi Mdabe, said Phumeza completes him.
"Shota, Mkhwibisha, Ntshengele, Shlahlesihle ?????? Thank you for walking this crazy life journey with me, always by my side??,” she wrote.
See her post here:
The couple have given fans and friends glimpses into their marriage, and shown us that a healthy, happy, long marriage is possible.
See his post here:
But it hasn't been without its challenges.
A couple of years back, Shota and Phumeza’s lives were turned upside down when their last born, Mpilo was diagnosed with eye cancer, forcing the couple to step away from the limelight and take time out to look after their son.
Speaking to Drum's sister magazine Move!, the celebrity couple said, “We’ve been through a lot and this is our time to be happy. Things are fine at home. We’re happy.”
Phumeza said when their son was born, he brought so much joy into their lives.
“We were very happy. Shota had just paid lobola. It was a nice surprise.”
However, a year later their little bundle of joy was diagnosed with eye cancer and they were devastated.
“His irises were pitch black. I remember asking my wife why his eyes were awkward,” Shota told Move! in a previous interview.
Mpilo's eyes seemed to get worse as he grew older, making his parents even more worried. They had taken him to an optometrist when he was one year old.
“He said the bridge of Mpilo’s nose is going to grow and pull his eyes back into the proper position,” said the mother of four.
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But when their son started feeling his way around the house when he was walking, they thought he needed glasses and took him back to the optometrist. That was when they were told their son had a rare form of eye cancer called bilateral retinoblastoma and it had spread through the optic nerve on the right eye.
“They said they can try to save the left eye but can’t promise anything.”
He was then referred to Life Fourways Hospital for MRI scans to check if the cancer had spread elsewhere in his body.
“The cancer was at stage 4. We thought he was already dying,” Phumeza said.
The little boy immediately started chemotherapy, but doctors couldn’t save his eye.
“I was looking at him thinking, ‘My son doesn’t know what awaits him’. He was about to lose his eye and there was nothing we could do,” Shota said.
See his post here:
Mpilo’s health problems came at a time when his parents were doing well in their respective careers, but they had to slow it all down to be there for their son.
“We were living our best lives, but God took us back to the beginning. We needed the money for his treatment, but I couldn’t leave him and travel the world,” Phumeza said.
They even downgraded their lifestyle to be able to afford the best medical care money could buy.
“He thought I was being insensitive when I said we need to lose the cars to accommodate our financial situation,” she added.
See his post here:
The parents have set up the Mpilo Foundation for blind children, as they want to help other kids.
“We can only imagine what a blind person goes through, but he understands it,” Phumeza said.
See his post here:
