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Each
family has a different situation, but most of them did not know they are
carrying this epidemic virus and they were so happy to hear their baby’s first
cry.
While
luckily, some children are born healthy, others are not; inheriting this
disease in their little bodies from their parents. The question that keeps
bothering my mind is; where will these children’s futures be when Vietnamese
society still has so much discrimination against people suffering from HIV and
their families.
You
and I are, perhaps, always proud of having a father as a good doctor, a great
engineer ... having a mother as a successful teacher or a nice nurse.
However, who is really proud of having a mother or father suffering from HIV,
who always has to
try to hide it to be able to have a peaceful life and to keep
their jobs ?
A
mother with HIV sadly told me that whenever her little boy asked her where his
father is, she could only tell him that his father was busy doing land business
while in fact, he had passed away several years before. She brought her son back to live with her
parents to avoid the malign gossips and discrimination from her husband’s
family’s neighbours.
But
the luckiest thing is when he was found to be HIV negative, he could go to
school like other children and didn‘t have to face the discrimination, as no
one knows about his family’s real situation.
The
hope of life in her son gives her strength to live and work more happily. Other
than the sales job in a clothes shop, she cycles a long distance of 13 kilometres,
3 times a week to the Hanoi Central Paediatric Hospital to participate in
counselling and comforting families that have children suffering from HIV and
receiving treatment in the hospital.
The
job that she is doing deserves more than the salary of only 300.000 Dong per
month, but sharing the learnt experiences about HIV with the families in
similar circumstances
and taking care of their children make her life more
joyful and more meaningful.
She
says that while sharing her story with me, she wants to train her son to become
more brave and independent, so that when he doesn’t have his mom or his grandparents anymore, he can still manage his own life.
In
my mind, I want to tell the little boy that he should be proud of having such a
great mother who overcame fate, the discrimination of society to have a useful
and meaningful life.
Together
with my husband I decided to take over a godparenthood
for Duy to support
him and to help him to find a good
way for his life.
Hai Nguyen
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