How a Little Life Can Mean So Much in Death

This is a hard post for me to write. I’m sparking right now like a five-month old Christmas tree still lit. {READ: Fire Hazard}

A little boy in Uganda died last week of AIDS. What sucks is that’s nothing new. What sucks more is he was the brother of one of our scholarship girls at Just Like My Child Foundation (the non profit I work with) and the son of Florence – one of the women we care closely for.

His Name Was George…

Dena Lewerke, the Country Director on the ground in Uganda wrote a letter sharing her account of George’s passing and his mother’s turmoil. I’m sharing it here because… well for so many reasons. I sat here at my desk, tears streaming down my face, reading what I’m about to share with you. Little George didn’t have to die. His mother Florence shouldn’t be forced to fend for herself in extreme poverty without parents, the father of her children, or any hope of sustainable income. Most of all I’m upset because Florence’s circumstances are heart rending. And they’re happening to something like 80% of the women in developing nations like Uganda.

I’m not going to sit here and say that we have it so good here in the west and shouldn’t complain about our lives in the face of such tragedies. We’re all human and when I stub my toe I’m gonna cry about it. But this is serious. Poverty is real and it hurts and worst of all – it can be successfully eradicated – but few are doing what it takes (when it doesn’t take all that much).

That’s why I work with JLMC because they’ve got the formula right…

…and they’re eradicating poverty permanently for families and communities through self-sustaining programs for healthcare, business, education and social rights. That means once a program is funded and hits its tipping point within a few short years or months, it continues, self-funded ad infinitum. JLMC and its donors can move on to the next project knowing that the community it just served… the problems it just addressed… will STAY SOLVED, STAY SOLVENT, and poverty loses another battle for dominion over the human condition.

Read Dena’s account below. Please. It moved me beyond words. Then see how I’m taking my work with Just Like My Child one step further to specifically help Florence and women like her through this tough time. No mother should have to suffer her child’s death. You and I can absolutely do something about this and though I know you’d give anyway, I’m going to make it doubly worth your while to help. Learn more at the end of this post.

Farewell to Little George – From Dena

This has truly been an emotional roller coaster. One day we see progress with Florence and the boys, the next day they are suffering and it’s difficult to know the best way to help on the emotional front. It’s nearly impossible to turn away when you see the need of someone like Florence and her family, they are truly among the poorest.

It’s hard to imagine what it must be like as a single mother, living with AIDS and with two small children with AIDS. Her family gave her away when she was young (never providing her with any education at all) to an old man for a bunch of cattle, and now they won’t support her in any way, not even when her son George died this week. She has no family to turn to for support, no land (no place of her own, not even to bury her son), no garden, no one who believes in her… and yet she is expected to just pick herself up.

People around here (myself included at times) have gotten annoyed with her for being in denial about her situation for so long. No one talks about the fact that this is a normal psychological side effect of the disease and instead people judge her. What do they judge her for? Because she would get frustrated at times for having to take George to the hospital so frequently.

What people don’t understand is that she’s frustrated because every day she was with George at the hospital was a day when she was not working – a day she won’t be able to buy food.

Just before George got sick this last time she was so proud for working so hard: she had been promised enough work to buy a bag of corn flour (that would allow her to make porridge for the family for one month) and save enough money so that she could visit Nyangoma (her daughter and one of our scholarship girls) by herself on visiting day, for the first time. Now this has been a major goal for her in recent weeks. And she had to give it all up so that she could take care of George. Florence was forced to choose between the work that would feed her children and the hospital visit that would ease George’s suffering. For a single mother like her in Africa… to care for one child can mean the others starve. To keep everyone fed can severely affect the child wasting away from AIDS. No mother should ever be forced into such a choice. Watching Florence endure this broke my heart.

She really struggled, being so sick herself with AIDS, and taking care of two boys who also needed a lot of medical attention, she really did everything she could to help George. George’s father finally did come yesterday to take George to the family’s home place to be buried, which is customary. Florence really wanted this too, because the alternative would have been to bury him in a public site (which is basically a mass shallow grave). Her family is not in the picture or apparently helpful at all, so she is truly all alone. The father seems to care about the boys, but we don’t know where he has been all of this time. At least he was here now.

The nurses tell me that George was coherent just before he passed away. He told his mom he was losing energy to breath and asked her to take him in her arms, to sleep with her on the mat. He thought this would give him strength.

He passed away in her arms.

I sat a long time with Florence while she cried for him yesterday morning and last night. Brian (George’s brother) kept looking for George everywhere in the hospital; he still thinks George is just sleeping. The father could only afford to bring one motorcycle for George to take him to his home village of Basoga for burial, very, very far away on the opposite side of the country. He couldn’t afford to get another motorcycle to bring Florence and Brian with him. Florence said it was okay, but we put some money together to get a second motorcycle so that her and Brian could also attend, which is so important for them both.

When I think about George, I think about the times we spent here, the day we drew pictures together while we waited for his treatment outside the hospital and how happy he was about the houses and letter and numbers he had drawn. About the X-mas we all spent together watching Harry Potter, and eating cake, with the other kids, and how after his mom took him to Mild May to get treatment for TB, he came back looking so health and happy, his eyes were dancing, as if to say, “Look at me, I’m okay now.” He was so happy to be able to play with the other kids. I remember seeing him running and playing with kids for the first time. I’ll remember George this way and I’m glad he doesn’t have to suffer anymore.

Thanks so much for all of your thoughts, and thank you for your comments on remaining vigilant in helping women and children — so important, the poorest of the poor are truly in dire, dire need of help. I think for any of us here, we can get so overwhelmed by the need that it is easy to give up on the neediest, but children like George and Brian and Nyangoma and mother’s like Florence are definitely counting on us. Thank you for supporting me here and allowing me to assist in JLMC’s mission.

Love,
Dena Lewerke

Join Me in Supporting the New FLORENCE FUND

JLMC has created a special fund to commemorate Florence and George and to funnel funds directly to Florence and women like her who are suffering absolutely unacceptable circumstances: like having to regularly choose between doing the day’s work to feed all her children… or take her ailing son with AIDS to the hospital to ease his suffering knowing that he and his brother and sister will have to go hungry for a few days.

I ask that you go to JLMC’s donation page and select “Florence Fund” for where you’d like your money to go. Make a donation of any amount. You’d be amazed how far even $50 can go and the lives you can forever change with just $1000 or more.

Give $200 or more to the Florence Fund and I’ll give you my entire Ultimate Guide to Freelancing Package FREE

This is a brand new, fully updated and uber-loaded package that gives you a consultant’s business-in-a-box. Everything from marketing and sales funnels, proposal and email templates, client management doc templates, how-to manuals on every aspect of consulting you can imagine, five unique personality-branded webpacks so you have a fully-built, pro-written website ready to go, and so much more.

It’s based on my original Turbo Charged Consulting Package which sold for $497. Completely overhauled, re-written and redesigned (with boatloads of new stuff added in), it could easily go for closer to $997 though I would never charge that because I want those who need it most to get it. Point being – it’s valuable. It will make you money. And it will save you an epic amount of time trying to create everything for your freelance business yourself (or to even improve it all yourself with everything I teach you).

Most of us are entrepreneurs and provide our services to others either as our primary or side source of income. I truly hope and expect this to be of benefit to you.

If you give $200 or more and you do NOT want my consulting package… AND I know you personally… I am happy to give you a free consultation on your marketing, product launch, or to brainstorm your business or personal life. With my background in life coaching I have some pretty poignant tricks up my sleeve in that arena.

The choice is yours.

But please please please please give something… anything… to the Florence Fund. It would mean a lot.

How to Get Your Freebie

Once you donate, forward your confirmation of your donation to me at contact@jaimemintun.com and I will respond to you personally. Thank you so much for your love, passion and service for this cause and know that my gratitude will be uploaded supernova-style to the Universe to be showered upon you 10-fold in future superhappylovestuff!