The story behind the day

Margaret was 10 years old. First,I have to say I gave it some thought as to whether or not I should post the pictures. I was trying to post them this morning when Sr.julie ran in and said to come quickly,they needed me right away in the sick room. I decided that it was right to post them after she died because I want her to be a child with a face and a name, not just another child dying of AIDS in Africa.
She had been orphaned at a very young age and left in the care of 2 aunts. One beat her,she had to live with that one because the other one's husband refused to have her in the house, so she would only come there during the day. That aunt would bring her to the clinic.They could never start her on ARVS because the aunts would not come for the training and there was no one else who would give them to her. At some point she was also molested. She was admitted to Nyumbani emergently last monday, when she came to the clinic very ill and severely malnourished, wieighing only 20 lbs, open sores on her body. I helped care for her all week. At first she would only tolerate my caregiving,she was very afraid of mizungos.Then on Friday I opened my laptop in the room and she saw the picture of Jack.I showed her and said "see my grandbaby?" she smiled and answered back "he's not a baby,he's a big boy."From that moment on we were together,she told the other nurse I was her friend. This morning Jody, my roommate,who's a new graduate nurse from the UK, and I came on duty at 6am. We stayed with her until the regular nurse came in at 8, I told her that she had been pretty much sleeping but her breathing had changed in the past half hour. The nurse reported to the staff in morning report that she was better. ??? I won't go into all what I thought should have happened here, and didn't, but throughout the morning she
was unresponsive (the last time she spoke was last night, when she said 'everyone left me."
She also was seizing this morning.
The nyumbani kids have been on school holiday and they all got to go to a real movie today.Ken really wanted to go,and he couldn't go if a nurse didn't go.he knows me the best so I decided to go with them and jody would stay with margaret. I was pretty sure she was going to die this afternoon but I really felt that I needed to do this for ken, life goes on.Jody sent me text messages throughout the movie, most of which I read while I took kids to the bathroom. I got back to Nyumbani 20 minutes after she had died. Jody and Sr.Matron were with her, her aunt actually walked out of the room as she was taking her last breaths. She told me later it was God's will that she died. We all said our goodbyes, they called the mortuary service and they took her away in the back of a pickup truck, laid her by the old tires.
But, for one week she knew she was loved.
It's been a long sad frustrating day, I have to accept how things are here. I talked to some of the Kenyans about how could a family do this to their children and they said it's all about revenge and stigma and blame. and a little girl caught in the middle.