I am Where I am Because of Where I Have Been

Cecy Dlamini, 19, lives in Soweto, South Africa with her siblings, nieces, and nephews. After her mother passed away from complications with AIDS 6 years ago, Cecy has been responsible for caring for her family. Through the help of Ikageng Itireleng AIDS Ministry and Keep a Child Alive, Cecy has been able to raise her family and attend school. As she has a passion for writing and journalism, Cecy has decided to share her story with you.

Chapter 3 - Brian

At the time of my father's death, my mother was seven months pregnant with Bruce and Brian. Ever since the day they were born, Brian had always been very weak. At first my mother dismissed it as a the myth that in each pair of twins there will always be one who is weaker than the other half. But the sickness persisted and Brian tested positive for HIV, but the ironic thing is that Bruce tested negative on the same test. Things became especially unbearable for all of us when my brother Brian started falling ill from opportunistic illnesses caused by HIV.

More often than not both my mother and brother would be hospitalised at the same time at the same hospital, HIV wracking their immune systems. But there is a day that stands out in my mind. It was a time when Brian's body was so swollen that it was twice its normal size and he was experiencing very painful blisters all over his body. For two days he screamed in sheer agony. He could not even sleep because pressure on those blisters caused them to burst which caused him to let out a cry for help which brought us all to our knees.

Brian had not been hospitalised for years since my mother's death, and we were all convinced that we had caught a very lucky break as he seldom complained of discomfort or pain in those days. Unfortunately we were in for a very rude awekening. Brian suddenly fell very ill very quickly only three months after my sister Sandile's death in 2005. After a dreadful week in which his naturally small frame had deteriorated into mere skin and bones, he could fight no longer. He was lying in the same bed that my mother had laid in less than three years prior, and he asked me to make some porridge for him. I was especially proud of him at that moment as it had been a struggle getting him to eat anything all week, not that there was much to eat in any case. All that we had to eat for two weeks was porridge. I dished the cooked porridge up into the biggest bowl I could find and to my surprise he devoured every last spoonful of it.

Little did I know that that would be his very last meal. I got up to take the bowl to the kitchen area and halfway to the kitchen something inside me told me to go back to him, and to my absolute horror there he lay, luke warm and limp with his head hanging from his neck. I remember seeing almost a smile on his beautiful face. I had experienced a lot of loss in my life before that, with the deaths of first my father, then my mother, then my older sister and now an innocent little child whose only crime was being born into this dreadful disease. That moment single handedly destroyed me. Brian's passing away felt like the last nail in my own coffin.