Zaheera Khan with her husband, Reagan Meshach Naidoo.
Image: Supplied
In December 2025, a pregnant Zaheera Khan, 27, was returning home to Durban from the United Arab Emirates where she worked as a teacher, when she suffered an unimaginable tragedy.
He husband, Reagan Meshach Naidoo, 24, was killed in a devastating accident while on his way to the airport to fetch her.
His death came exactly two months Khan’s mother, Nasreen Khan, 51, had died.
Khan was four months pregnant at the time.
“I never imagined that at 27 I would have experienced the kind of loss that would change the entire course of my life,” she said.
“I was a wife, a daughter, and preparing to become a mother. Then, within the space of just two months, I lost my mother and my husband,” she said.
Khan’s said her mother was her best friend.
She said her mother became seriously ill in 2024 after losing blood flow to her left leg, which later had to be amputated.
However, her health continued to deteriorate.
“My mother underwent several more operations and developed a bedsore that led to septicemia. Her stents became infected and had to be removed, and within a month her right leg also had to be amputated,” said Khan.
She said by August 2025, her mother’s wounds failed to heal and gangrene had spread through her body.
Doctors eventually told the family there was nothing more they could do other than keep her comfortable with morphine, she added.
“Imagine the fear of knowing that someone you love is going to die, not knowing exactly when,” she said.
She said her mother fought for another month before she died.
Khan said her mother was never defined by her illness.
“She was vibrant, energetic, beautiful and incredibly independent,” she said.
“My mother was the breadwinner of our family and worked in motor spares, becoming the first female saleswoman at Masterparts. She had also overcome cancer.
“She was a true fighter. She was my personal therapist,” Khan said.
The pair spoke every day, and despite Khan moving abroad, her mother encouraged her to pursue her dreams.
Her mother’s death left Khan devastated.
At one point, she said, she did not want to live anymore.
Her husband was the person who helped her through that period.
Around the time her mother was being made comfortable in hospital, Khan discovered she was pregnant.
The news brought happiness, but also profound pain, she said.
“She never got to see me become a mother and that is something that will always hurt me.
“I wish my son could have known her. I wish he could have experienced the woman I knew, the woman who was my best friend, my safe place and my biggest supporter.”
Zaheera Khan with her son, Meshach.
Image: Supplied
A journey to the airport that ended in tragedy
Just two months after losing her mother, Khan suffered another devastating blow.
Her husband, Reagan, was on his way to fetch her from the airport when he was involved in a serious accident.
He suffered a severe brain injury and spent six days in hospital fighting for his life. He was placed on a ventilator and remained unresponsive.
Khan was still at the airport when she received the call.
“I was four months pregnant at the time. I remember taking an Uber to the hospital, terrified and not knowing what I was about to see.”
For six days, she sat beside his hospital bed, held his hand and begged him to wake up.
The couple had been planning their baby’s gender reveal for December 20.
Khan discovered they were expecting a boy and told Reagan, hoping the news might somehow wake him up.
Doctors eventually told her that his injuries were extensive and that they did not believe he would survive.
On Saturday, December 13, she received the news that Reagan had died.
“I was four months pregnant, and in a space of a week, I went from planning our future and our son’s gender reveal to imagine a future without my husband. It was something I never thought I would have to survive.”
Carrying life while grieving death
The months that followed became a battle simply to function, Khan said.
She returned to work in the UAE while grieving both her mother and her husband, far from her family and with little support around her.
“Losing my mother and my husband within the space of two months broke me completely. To be honest, I still do not know how I coped or how I made it this far.”
She grieved behind the closed doors of her home, going to school, returning home and crying.
Khan said her world continued around her, but she felt disconnected from it.
“The sun was shining, the world was carrying on, but everything inside me felt dark,” she added.
She said she stopped taking care of herself, lost interest in music and going outside, and developed a fear of the outside world.
“My brain went into survival mode.”
Pregnancy made the experience even more complicated.
“I was not strong, but I had to be,” Khan said.
She said she often held her stomach and apologise to her unborn child because she cried so much.
As her pregnancy progressed, Khan had to confront a future she had never imagined.
“How am I going to do this alone?” she repeatedly asked herself.
She attended hospital appointments alone and faced her third trimester while living with immense grief.
When doctors told her she would need a C-section because of complications, she was terrified.
She worried about recovering from surgery while caring for a new-born with little support around her.
But on May 4, 2026, Khan delivered a healthy 3.6kg baby boy.
She named him Meshach, giving him his father’s second name.
“I remember forcing myself to be strong when they wheeled me into the theatre. There was no familiar face, no one holding my hand and no one there to reassure me. I was terrified, but I stayed calm.”
She cried throughout the procedure.
One person who stepped forward was her friend’s mother, Saras Reddy.
Although she was not family by blood, Reddy became an important source of support for Khan.
After Khan’s C-section, she travelled to the UAE to help her and the baby.
“She was not there only for the baby, she was there for me too. She cared for me, supported me and made sure I was not facing those difficult days alone.”
The support also reminded Khan painfully of what she had lost.
Watching another mother care for her made her think about what he own would have done if she had still been alive.
Motherhood did not erase the grief
Giving birth did not suddenly make Khan’s grief disappear. Instead, it brought a new layer of pain.
On the day she gave birth, she was repeatedly asked where her husband was.
“I had to keep saying, ‘He passed away,’. It was such a painful thing to have to say on the day I had just given birth to our son.”
Khan experienced postpartum depression and said there were days when she struggled to get out of bed or properly attend to her baby.
She missed Reagan constantly.
“He was supposed to be there. He was supposed to experience those first moments with me. He was supposed to hold his son, watch him grow and become a father. Instead, I was doing it alone.”
Every milestone became a reminder of his absence
“No family holidays with his father. No Sunday lunches together as a family. No ordinary family moments that I had imagined we would have. It would just be us. I am his family.”
Amid the darkness, her son became her reason to continue.
“There were moments when I felt like I had absolutely nothing left in me, but I knew there was a little person depending on me. He did not take away my grief, but he gave me purpose within it.”
Now, she wants her son to grow up knowing who his father and grandmother were beyond the tragedy of his death.
“I want my son to know just how deeply he was wanted and loved, even before he was born.
“My son will know his grandmother and his father through me. I will make sure their names continue to exist in his life.”
Zaheera Khan and her mother, Nasreen Khan.
Image: Supplied
The hidden weight of widowhood
Today, Khan is raising her son in a foreign country while navigating life without her husband and dealing with complicated paperwork because his father is deceased.
The financial, mental and emotional burden has been immense.
“Trying to raise a baby by yourself in a foreign country is extremely difficult. There are days when I feel like I simply cannot do this alone.”
Khan said there was also a lack of understanding about what widows carried.
“People see a mother with her baby, but they do not see the weight she is carrying behind the scenes — the grief, the financial responsibility, the decisions she has to make alone and the emotional exhaustion of raising a child without the person who was supposed to be beside her.”
“Being a widow is not just about losing your husband. It means suddenly carrying responsibilities you never expected to carry alone.”
She believes more support is needed for women raising children while grieving, particularly those living far from their families.
“I used to think being strong meant being able to handle everything. Now I know that strength can look like falling apart and still choosing to continue.”
“It means allowing yourself to grieve. It means admitting that something hurts.”
“I don’t consider myself strong because none of this affected me. I consider myself strong because it affected me deeply, and I am still here.”
Khan wants women to know that they are allowed to cry, struggle and admit when they are not okay.
“You can love your children deeply and still miss the people you lost. You can be grateful for your children and still feel heartbroken. Grief and love can exist together.”
Khan does not believe she will ever be the woman she was before the losses.
“I carried my mother with me. I carried my husband with me. I carried my baby before I ever held him. And somehow, through all of that, I carried myself too.”
“That is the woman I see now. Not a woman who was untouched by tragedy, but a woman who was changed by it and is still surviving it,” she said.
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