Two Old African Proverbs: (1) A Child Belongs to Everyone (2) It Takes a Whole Village to Raise a Child

CHAPTER 11  Do people know the day on which they are going to die? Do they wake up in the morning with a heightened sense of impending doom? Do they feel different in some way from the many other days of their lives? Do they feel more alert and more aware or maybe less alert and less aware? Grandma Teresa awoke on the 7th of August and, like all the other days since her grandsons had come to live with her, she felt happy. She was a slight woman with frail bones, due not so much to old age as to a poor diet, accompanied by years of anorexia nervosa, when she was younger. She was what many would call a woman of lingering beauty. At fifty-nine she still looked ‘catwalk’ striking, yet gracefully fragile. What Grandma Teresa lacked in her physical body, she made up for in her strong will and determination to help people. Her life over the past fifty-nine years held painful and joyful memories. The death of two young children from drug and alcohol abuse and the incarceration of a third child were the cause of the many furrows on her face. This was closely followed by the squandering of her mass fortune by two of her five husbands and the death of her first husband, her first love, an honest, hard working man, whom she always regretted divorcing. She could hear her grandsons and their friends talking in the adjacent room and smiled. Not only did she enjoy their company, for the first time in a long while she had people that took care...

Truths, Lies And Untold Secrets

    All things work together for the good of those who love the Lord, those who have been called according to His purpose. Romans 8 verse 28. These are powerful words and today, as my father, the minister, preached them with such passion, I was convinced to an extent. For somehow, when you have seen a vision of hell on the faces of the people you love, like I have, you wonder what your purpose is, you wonder if you have indeed really been called. This is nearly the fourth year of the war between the Union of the North and us in the South. In the past months, many people have lost their families, homes, and livelihoods. We have been fortunate indeed and have not suffered much loss. Papa says we should be thankful yet more vigorous in our attempts to help our brothers in the North free the slaves. All around me I see hate on the faces of people that I have known nearly all my life. This hate is so fierce, yet it seems to have no source or reason, but just is. I am told that ‘Love Destroys Hate.’ Many nights I have lain awake wondering if this is true. In the midst of all this hate and darkness, can a light be seen? Will love claim its victory? Will the people who come after us understand why, as people who profess to love God—brother had to fight brother to free our brothers? I hope they will because I am living in this era and as God is my witness I cannot. Now,...

We All Know Someone Who Has Committed Suicide – Note from Author of U Murder U (Suicide)

  Q: Why is your latest novel about suicide? A: Because believe it or not we all know someone who has committed suicide.  In my author’s note I talk about someone I knew . . . .    Note from Author  Most people, like me, will know someone who committed suicide or know someone who knows someone.  When I finished my MSc in Medical Microbiology at university I got a job in a renowned London hospital’s Microbiology Laboratory and it was there that I met him, my work mentor. He wasn’t that tall, was balding, of slight built and told me once that he bought some of his trousers in the children’s section of clothing shops. He took me under his wing and taught me the difference between studying Medical Microbiology and working in a laboratory and how to put my theory know-how into practice. He used to wind me up by calling me ‘Gladiola’ instead of Gladys – he told me it was the name of a beautiful flower and I believed him (we didn’t have the internet back then for me to check if it was true or not). I worked with him for nearly seven years; two of those years were spent on maternity leave having my children. When I went back to work each time he brought me up to speed and made sure that I was okay with all the new methods.  The things I remember most are his willingness to always help me when I needed help at work and how when we had a slight misunderstanding I would frown at him, he...

Chapter 7 of U Murder U (Suicide)

    Your support has been valuable – Thank you and enjoy Chapter 7 of U Murder U (Suicide) below Gladys x     CHAPTER 7  Dr Peter Lewis walked into the conference room and saw a man holding his wife’s arm and talking to her, he saw the look of fear on his wife’s face which she was trying desperately to conceal. With slight trepidation he walked up to them and turned his wife round to face him, “Anna, what is it?” “Peter, oh my God, Peter, I just saw a vision of a little girl, she was standing over there and there was this bright light around her,” she whispered then collapsed against him. He held her close, he could feel her shaking.   A short time later “Ladies and gentlemen, my wife is not feeling well and will not be able to continue with this conference. She is aware that a number of you have come a long way to be here today and has asked me to continue on her behalf and answer whatever questions you might still have. My name is Dr Peter Lewis and I co-founded TTS with Anna some years ago.” Completely ill at ease, Dr Peter Lewis rubbed his forehead nervously as he tried to make the transition from university lecturer mode to a conference speaker mode. “Suicidium is a latin word from which sui caedare is taken from, which means to kill oneself or the act of intentionally causing one’s own death. World organisations estimate that each year approximately one million people die from suicide. These organisations have said that in...

Chapter 6 of U Murder U (Suicide)

    CHAPTER 6   Conference Room, Large Book Shop in Oxford Street, London  After an hour and a half of talking to her audience, Anna had opened the floor up to a question and answer session. The questions were coming fast and furiously. “Is it true that people who talk about wanting to die by suicide are only seeking attention and don’t try to kill themselves?” Anna shook her head, “No, people who talk about wanting to die by suicide often do go on to kill themselves. Psychiatrists say that when people talk about it, it is often a cry for help and people shouldn’t ignore this cry because some people are actually looking for a way forward, a way through their pain without dying.” “Does suicide always occur without any warning signs?” “There are almost always warning signs, we just need to know what to look out for in people,” Anna replied. “You’ll be surprised at the number of parents I’ve spoken to who’ve said that they were completely blindsided, they didn’t see it coming. Parents who’ve said they were completely shocked and distraught at their child’s unprecedented action of suicide. Then you ask them a few pertinent questions and you find out that their son or daughter had started locking themselves in their bedroom and not been communicative for weeks prior to their death. Or the child had been depressed for weeks then suddenly became happy, which is usually when they’ve devised a plan to kill themselves, or a child suddenly starts to give away his or her most prized and treasured possessions. A mother would...