They come from different sides of a tragedy that cost 51-year-old Amanzimtoti man Kenneth Gary van Aardt his life.
Married just four months before the murder, Sharon van Aardt is a grieving widow . . . while Clive Julyan is the father of the man accused of strangling her husband with a shoelace in the early hours of March 1 last year.
Yet the widow, who travelled from her home in Fish Hoek to attend the trial of Wesley Neil Julyan, 19, at the High Court Southern Circuit in Ramsgate last week, could see the pain etched in the face of Clive Julyan.
And just before she returned home towards the end of the trial, Van Aardt, who had earlier in the week introduced herself to Clive Julyan, went across and hugged him.
"Kenny's death has nothing to do with the accused's father. Why should I hold a grudge against him? We are all suffering," she said. Van Aardt plans to telephone the accused's father soon to see how he is doing.
Wesley Julyan has pleaded not guilty to Van Aardt's murder and to robbing him of his Ford Ikon car. Judgment will be given on Wednesday.
The teenager has said that he was under the influence of alcohol and two Ecstacy tablets and also under the influence of his former co-accused, Jaco Strauss, 22.
Strauss pleaded guilty to the killing under a plea bargain deal in February and is now serving 15 years in jail.
He blamed Julyan for strangling the victim; while Julyan claims he was under orders from Strauss to hold Van Aardt's arms and then saw Strauss "pulling the string".
The couple, from Mthwalume on the South Coast, had been clubbing with another friend, Wayne Larmont, before their car broke down on the way home. Van Aardt offered them a lift, then bought them drinks at an Mthwalume club. After Larmont went home, Van Aardt, who was under the influence of alcohol, was put in his car to take him home. But he was murdered on the journey and his body was buried in a shallow grave at a bushy area near Julyan's home.
And if it had not been for Strauss sending "bizarre" SMS messages to his former girlfriend, Libby Jacobs, in England, Van Aardt's body may never have been found. Jacobs contacted the police and Interpol tipped off Port Shepstone police.
The widow, who travelled daily to Ramsgate from Durban for the trial, had to pass the Park Rynie turn-off where her husband met his death - and then, on the opposite side of the freeway, had to pass the treeline at Mthwalume where he lay buried.
"I hate this road," she said on one trip. "The first time I came this way, we were so excited. We were moving from the Cape to start our new life in Amanzimtoti." After the murder, she gave up her rented home and returned to her roots in Fish Hoek.
She visited the site of the shallow grave three times during the week and felt "hurt and very sad".
It had been traumatic and draining to attend the trial and to listen to the evidence. But she was glad she had been able to look into the faces of Strauss and Wesley Julyan.
In a letter to Larmont from his holding cell in Scottburgh, Julyan wrote that Larmont did not understand the pain and suffering he and his parents were going through. He had never seen his father cry before "and every time I see him and look into his eyes, I can see and feel his pain", he wrote.
The victim's sister, Esther Wilson, said that her mother, Mavis van Aardt, who lives in Doonside, still cries herself to sleep every night. "She says she just wants to join Kenny," said Wilson.