A TRUE STORY

                  ONE DARK NIGHT
It was a full house, my younger sister and her two kids were visiting, she came visiting so as to enable her stop breastfeeding her daughter who was about a year old. It was just like any other visit, her son, junior and my son mike were best of friends, even though mike was two years older than junior.
Did I mention that I didn’t give birth to mike? Yes I didn’t. I’ve been married for over ten years and I have no child of my own. When my younger brother had a child, I decided to take the child as my own because his parents couldn’t cater for him.
I took care of mike more than I would my own flesh and blood, he filled the void in my heart. Mike is now four years old, and I am about to learn a valuable life lesson.
Mike had been playing outside all day and my sister was unaware of this, I was at the shop as usual and wouldn’t be back till 9pm. Mike came home crying and bleeding from one leg and when my sister asked him what happened to him, he was reluctant to say, she even beat him. Mike finally told her that he was bitten by a dog. Immediately, she sprung into action and took him to the nearest chemist where the wound was treated. On getting home from the chemist, he giggled and said ‘aunty it was not dog that bit me, an iron cut me near the dumpster’ my sister hit him on the head and told him not to lie anymore, she assumed the worst was over, but she was wrong,
I got home at 10pm, I was so tired that I didn’t give my baby boy any attention. He was not playing as usual but I didn’t notice because everybody was admiring my sister’s baby as she spoke her first words. At about 2am, mike was screaming from his room. I sent my sister to check on him, he told her that his bones were stiff and couldn’t explain how he was feeling. She screamed at him to go to bed and left him alone. At this point, I was becoming worried, I woke up very early and took him to mama iyase, who was a traditional healer to massage him. He was with her for a few hours before I got a call to come to the central hospital. I got into the pediatric ward and searched for my son, I saw him and words cannot explain how I felt at that very moment. My baby was stiff and couldn’t move or talk, he was in so much pain, he looked at me but he couldn’t reach out to me. A part of me died at that very moment, I grabbed the doctor and asked what was wrong with my son and he told me that my son had tetanus, he had been infected through his wound. ‘please save my son doctor , I will give you my life savings, everything I own please save him. I was gradually loosing sanity at this point, I wrote a check for five hundred thousand naira to buy drugs from Lagos and transport it to Port Harcourt by air. After all the drugs were administered, there was no progress. Junior was brought to the hospital by his mother because he kept asking for mike. He tapped mike and said ‘mike, let’s go home and play ‘ mike could see him but he could not reply. Junior got down from the bed and starting singing a song used mostly in burials. His mother slapped him and asked him to stop, assuring him that his friend will be ok, junior kept singing.
I was by his side all night, praying to God to take me instead of mike. I could hardly breathe; tears flowed freely down my eyes. Finally he called out to me ‘mummy, I want to go home’ he was barely audible; I held his hand and told him he will be ok. My baby boy stopped breathing, my whole world shattered before my eyes. My sister ran in and burst into tears. I was inconsolable, if tears could bring my baby back, he would be here today, I know this because I cried.
I found out that mike was not immunized as a baby, and I was careless as well because I did not take steps to inquire about it. I locked up my shop for 6 months because I wasn’t ready to let go of the fact that he was gone, whenever my sister calls, her son junior will always ask ‘where is mike?. I finally put myself together and continued with my life but mike will always be in my heart.
                                                                                           In loving memory of my little friend who passed away on the 1st day of January 2012