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"The Jacaranda tree outside my father's hospital room helped me see the other side of the world,
to see beauty and a hope of life." |
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| September 1997, I left New York to go back home to Malawi. My father was admitted at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Blantyre. He had had a massive stroke. I could barely recognize him. He was so thin, he looked like a victim of starvation. He could not move or speak. I stayed with my father at the hospital for two weeks, sleeping on a mattress on the floor in his ward. I took turns with my mother to be wih him, because back at my family home was a very sick brother, Henry. Both my dad and my brother had AIDS. During the day I would sit by a window in my father's room and I would read him the Bible from the Book of Psalms, his favorite. Right outside was this huge tree in bloom. It bore this beautiful thick purple blossom. It was a jacaranda tree, Malawi has lots of jacaranda trees. This tree lit up my father's room with a glow. To see my father suffer was so hard for me, it was very painful. But this jacaranda tree outside helped me see the other side of the world, to see beauty and a hope of life. On a daily basis in this hospital, there would be one to two families weeping, passing my father's ward, wheeling their loved ones on a stretcher to the morgue. Other days, there were even more deaths, all victims of AIDS. September the 12th, I stayed with my father overnight. Next morning, I got a call to reserve a room at the same hospital; my brother Henry had taken a turn for the worst. I went outside to wait for Henry's arrival. At the back of my brother Yusuf's pick-up truck, Henry lay on a mattress. His daughter Dorothy was crying. She was with my friend Jessie, who was my neighbor for many years. At this point, I knew Henry had died. He did not make it to the hospital. |
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| Henry was a Muslim so he could not stay at the morgue; we had to bury him within 24 hours. I drove all the way back home with his dead body at the back of the pick-up truck. My brother Henry died September the 13th. Three days later, my father passed, September the 16th. As of today, Father, two brothers, four sister-in-laws, eight nieces and nephews, total fifteen immediate family members have died of AIDS. My niece Dorothy and my friend Jessie, who were with me at the back of the pickup truck, they too have since died of AIDS. The last member of my family to have died of AIDS was my 28 year-old nephew; he died September 2006. Sadly, for the past several years, when I return home, I visit family members and friends whom I grew up with and went to school with by placing flowers at their graves. Many children in Malawi desperately need help. Not just my orphaned nieces and nephews, but all the orphans left behind in Malawi, victims of AIDS. This is why I feel strongly to give all the help I can. The Jacaranda tree outside my father's room symbolized life, growth and hope. I created the Jacaranda Foundation to help give a future to orphans and underprivileged children in Malawi. Please join me on this mission. Marie Da Silva. |
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Children from the Jacaranda School under
a Jacaranda tree in Blantyre, Malawi. |
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