This is the night that I reflect on the maddeningly common horror of burying one's child. Tomorrow is World AIDS Day, and several of my female friends and relatives know that horror well, for like millions of the world's women, they have buried at least one of their children, after watching a preventable disease devour the bodies that theirs brought forth.
This is also the night that I reflect upon orphans. To lose a child is to bury one's heart, but to lose one's parents is often to be denied the most basic needs, at a time when one can afford denial the least. Often, the disease steals along the same lines that created the families it destroys; from husband to wife, from mother to child, in a grisly violation of the most intimate human relationships.
This is the night when I contemplate the fate of Africa and her children. In an echo of centuries past, villages are being emptied of their inhabitants, the continent losing its young in an even more permanent Middle Passage than the last.
This is the night I am pondering what I can do to help.
This is the night when I hope you are pondering the same.
Lord and Sustainer, Most Merciful, let us not forget those who we have lost, nor those who are with us. Help us to work to heal bodies and souls, and do not allow us to lose sight of you. Amin.
http://www.myspace.com/worldaidsday
Amin! And May Allah grant that a vaccine is found soon, so that this plague is eradicated in our children's lifetime.
Ya Haqq!