My Sister's Dream

We had a dream…I was going to go to college and be a counselor and she was going to be a nurse. Due to having a blood transfusion when she was young (before they tested for HIV) and then needing to go through testing for HIV/AIDS when we were a little older made her passionate about the disease and made her want to help children with HIV/AIDS. Her test was negative, but as a family while we waited for the results, we were all very scared about getting it if she was positive. It was still early in the discovery of AIDS so we still did not know how it was transmitted and the 7 of us in my family were anxious about her results. That is why she was going to be a nurse and I was going to be a social worker so she could help kids who had HIV and I could help counsel them and their families in a clinic we set up. We used to sit and talk about our dream as we grew up together, my best friend, my sister, April and I.

I went off to college, and she began nursing school. I began a little different course of study(rather than Psychology) because I knew I could not afford to get my Masters as I had to pay my own way through college. I instead chose criminal justice (but wound up as a social worker in my job after college). Life was going well for me as I met Bryan and we began to plan our wedding…

Life did not go so well for her. She married the wrong man who did not treat her well. She had physical problems which caused her immense pain and made it hard to work. She actually required surgery and needed to miss some of her nursing classes and they failed her. She gave up hope for her dream and gave in to depression, so much so that she ended her life on April 11, 1999. In my sorrow and then through the path my life took, I forgot our dream.

Now here I am, 12 years later in Lesotho, Africa working with HIV/AIDS babies and children. I am holding and caring for the children my sister loved and dreamed of helping. I am feeling her smile from heaven as she watches me and my children running and playing with the kids here. It is with joy and a full heart that I remember her today because we are living our dream in a different way. I am here caring for the children at Beautiful Gate and showing them God’s love for them without fear of HIV because I know God wants me to love them and April is in heaven welcoming those little ones who couldn’t hold on to life and who God has called home.

This post is in loving memory of my sister, my friend, April Michele Owens.