Dear Precious Baby,

Today you were born into the worst situation known to man.

Your Mom has AIDS, and your Dad already died of AIDS.
They can’t do the blood test on you until your eighteen months old, but there is a small chance it will be negative.

You have two older siblings. Your older sister, who is eight, will take care of you for the most part. She’ll strap you to her back and hold your five year old brothers hand taking you both through the crowded main street of town to sell the mandazi your mother made early in the morning while you still slept. Your mother hopes this will bring in money for some corn meal that will give her family the sense of fullness.

When you are two your abdomen will likely protrude. You'll be malnourished. You may get a meal a day. At night you will lay next to your mother on the hard dirt floor. She has no more milk for you; life no longer pours out of her. She is thin, and pained at your touch. You will watch her die and hear your sister and brother crying, wondering who will take care of them.


Who will take care of you?

You may end up on the streets. You might be separated from your siblings. But, one thing for sure, you will be orphaned.

And you don’t even know all this yet.

So rest precious baby. Rest because you do not know you are orphaned. Let the sorrows of this world not steal the peace you have now in your mothers arms.