A Needless Death-II

She was about 25. She hadn’t done well in school, so at a young age she had decided to try her hand at something else where she might do better—marriage.

She found a man to marry her and they began their life together. No wedding, just a coming together with an announcement to the community: “We’re married now.” Two children were born. One died of malaria, and the community became suspicious of HIV.

A divorce occurred. Her brother did not know why or what the circumstances were. Now she was a single mom with one surviving child, and HIV.

Her test had been positive, and at some time she had begun on antiretrovirals, life-saving medicines that have normalized the life span of HIV patients who are diagnosed early in the disease’s progression and while they are still young—if they take their meds like their lives depend on it; they do. She was young, but apparently not diagnosed early. The hospital was not very far away, but she was sick a lot, and going even a few kilometers on foot was a problem when sick. She was very poor, and probably ashamed of her status. It was not easy to get a ride. So she missed an appointment and then ran out of meds. She may have stopped and started her meds several times. And then she died.

Primary Cause of Death: Unknown, but some opportunistic infection, possibly tuberculosis, malaria, or cryptococcal (fungal) meningitis.

Secondary Cause of Death: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome—AIDS

Tertiary Cause of Death: Infection with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus--HIV

Contributing Factors: Stigma, Shame, Poverty, Unfaithfulness, Single Motherhood, Social Isolation. All these are things which the church must address in its God-given mission to help the helpless, defend the fatherless and the widow, offer forgiveness to the guilty and hope to the hopeless, to love the apparently unlovely whom Jesus loved enough to associate with, to care for, to speak up for (as his Father and ours has done since the beginning of time), and then to die for that we (yes, we are among them) might live to tell the story to others who need to hear it and to live that ongoing story in relationship with them.