when children lose their parents suffering crops in!!

The danger of losing a parent while young!

This is not new to anyone of us, we have seen it all over, but I need to place it into writing so that we can attach some value to what happens around us. If it is not you, it is on someone in your neighbor hood, in your community or somewhere else in the world, but it has happened. Probably you have seen at school.

It affects all children, but it happens to be worse when it comes to the girl child. I am not being biased but when you take closer observation, they suffer much more bitterly. Their suffering is beyond misery.

Let me share with you Jennifer’s story.  At this time she is thirty years of age. This is how it all started. Jennifer was born in a family of four siblings and happened to be the youngest. The first two children are boys and the last two are the girls. Their parents died when Jennifer the youngest was still very young. They lived in a place which was close to a city but these children knew none of their relatives.

Jennifer says that she was told that her father’s death was caused by fever which came simply and in a few days he was no more. Again, it was just after a month’s time that her mother too died. At that point they were left with no parental care.

Jennifer gets a job

At the neighborhood was a lady who was a close friend to their mother, she tried hard to give care to them. When she (Jennifer) made 17 years, with the growing needs and adolescent demands, she had no one to provide. The lady, who took care of her, had a friend who came around and requested to take Jennifer for work as a House maid.

Getting a job excited Jennifer and she thought it was going to be helpful. So they went and she started work. As time passed, one day her boss called her and asked her; for a house maid and a man to marry you, what do you choose? Jennifer took time to think of it and finally told her boss that getting a man was a better option. This happened when her boss already had some man friend who wanted to take Jennifer.

Jennifer gets married

Arrangements didn’t take long and Jennifer was off for marriage. She says that the first days of her marriage were good and she hoped it was going to be well. She produced four children, among who were twins. Of course with these many children in short time she got absorbed into their care. The husband at this time said that since she was not giving him adequate time, he had to find another woman. Indeed he moved on and went for another woman.

Jennifer with this suffering started looking for jobs and she got some casual ones. She gave up on men and started looking after her children. When they were a little grown, she took them to their grandparent and went to find her way.

After sometime Jennifer found another man who told her that for him he is not as her former husband. He showered her with a lot of gifts and raised her hopes again. She went with him and also produced babies. When she had two (2) she refused to add on any remembering what had happened to her earlier. The man unfortunately pestered for more which finally agreed to do since he was still good to her. This pregnancy brought twins. When she got busy with the young ones, the man started behaving badly as the former man. He moved out and got so many ladies, one after another.

With that behavior he contracted HIV. He started getting sick all the time but didn’t allow his wife to escort him to hospital even a single day. Whenever he felt very bad he would tell her he was going somewhere and he would be back after some time.

His condition at last worsened and she came to understand the problem. When she tried going to visit him where they were treating him from, the relatives chased her away saying she had “killed” their brother. They told her they didn’t want to see any more. When he died they didn’t allow her bury him.

Today she has the four children with her but HIV has weakened her terribly. She is not strong any more. She has no parent, no husband, and no relatives around. She is suffering; she is worried and doesn’t know the fate for her children.

My appeal is that if there is anything we can do to keep our lives from death let’s do it to save our children from such misery as for Jennifer.