My son, Peter, reminds me just how favoured I am

You all remember Lucy, my HIV-positive friend who lost her only son, Ryan, two years ago. She has never recovered.

Recover is not the right word. You recover from an illness or a bad financial decision. However, healing after the death of a loved one is an endless work in progress.

I have been visiting Lucy. To say that she misses her son is an understatement. Every day she has loads of unanswered questions. “Why did you leave?” “Why me?” She feels lonely. Empty. Inconsolable.

This sister feels as if her flower was plucked before it had opened. Sometimes she reminds me of the things she and Ryan did. The great plans she had for him.

She tells me that rarely does a minute go by without her remembering him, sometimes dropping his name in conversations. I am lost for words.

ENDLESS GRIEF

I do not know what to tell my friend. What can I say? I am on the outside peering in. I can only listen. I can only provide what someone once called “accessible ears” … and tissue and a shoulder.

Most probably, Lucy will live with this heartache for the rest of her life. I cannot tell her I understand, because I do not.

I do not know what I would do if anything happened to any of my sons. (By “anything”, I mean the D-word: death. I cannot bring myself to verbalise the D-word and “my sons” in the same sentence).

Some have got it twisted, reasoning that it is far-sighted to bear many children so that if, God-forbid, one dies, there will be others left. I do not buy that. Like someone once sang, “Mtoto si nguo…” children are not dispensable like clothes.

God has blessed me with five children. They all mean something different to me. I would be a nervous wreck if “anything” happened to any of my children.
Peter, my firstborn, was an only child for a long time. This angel gave me a new lease of life. I would have died if “anything” had happened to him.

FAVOURED SON

Even on those nights when I worried myself sick, wondering about his HIV-status, I swore to protect him no matter what.

For many women living with HIV, motherhood was, and still is, the elixir that promotes longevity more than antiretroviral therapy.

Now that Peter has siblings, my feelings for him have not changed. When Lucy laments about her rock of a son, it reminds me of Peter.

Reminds me of just how favoured I am.

We comfort and console ourselves, telling Lucy that there is something she will keep forever. That Ryan was her baby, her boy. That the Grim Reaper cannot take away the memories of their lives together.

At times I tell Lucy that she should have read between the lines. Or, to be specific, between the life Ryan lived. How come, at the age of 25, Ryan had achieved so much? He had accomplished what some of us, even at 50, are struggling to.

COMMUNAL TREASURE
He was a practising doctor. A father. Role model. Model son. Car-owner, not a spoiled brat who showed off in his mother’s car. It is as if God fast-forwarded Ryan’s life.

Lucy has decided that the best way to cherish her son’s memory is to give back. Nope. He will not be a priceless deposit only in his mother’s memory bank, but a communal treasure trove.

Lucy is planning to start a foundation in Ryan’s name to cater for needy children with brain cancer. She is focusing on research and early treatment.

This is because, had she known where to take Ryan for early diagnosis when he began complaining of headaches from 2009, maybe, just maybe, things would be different.

TROUBLING DISORDERS

She wants to ensure that no other mother suffers the pain of losing a child to a condition that could have been treated.

Each day, I pray that God will protect my children and, in extension, their mother, from disease and “anything”. It is stressful enough living with HIV.

Lifelong medical conditions can sap life out of a family. I know this, since I have a son who has autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Lucy has proffered her shoulder to others going through an experience similar to the one she did.

Right now, I am leaning on the shoulders of other mothers whose children have ASD, but soon I will be able to shoulder the weight of others who have a son like mine.