Belinda wiped an imaginary sweat
off her brow as she checked for the time; it was almost time to pick up Daniel
her 8-year-old son from school.
She hated that she had to close
the shop early on week days because she couldn’t imagine how much revenue she lost
every day but she would be damned before she risked Daniel’s education. Having
had him at the age of sixteen, she had had to drop out of school and her life
was not the kind that she wanted for him. She would do whatever it took to make
sure it didn’t end up that way.
Daniels’ father had been a
teacher at her school and when she found out that she was pregnant, she had
told him. His reaction had been cold, and that’s putting it lightly. She would
not let her darling son turn out to be one of those men; who didn’t take responsibility
for their actions, who preyed on girls who were young enough to be their
daughters, who ruined a girl’s future without thinking twice about it. When he
was old enough, she prayed to God that she would find the strength to explain
to him what happened and if she did it right, he would be strengthened by it
and not dwell on it as something to be ashamed of.
Being a Friday, Daniel would be
so excited for the games that happened every weekend that it would be almost
impossible for him to get adequate sleep. She loved that he got along well with
his peers and that the adults in the community mostly had good things to say
about him, well because boys will always be boys.
Being accepted in the community
and feeling that you belong always goes a long way in shaping one’s life and
she wanted Daniel to have that.
The only thing about the Saturday
community games that bothered Belinda were the consistent questions about when
she would be having more children. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone that she
couldn’t afford another child. She knew they meant well though so she didn’t
hold it against them, regardless she was glad that the man in her life
understood the need for child spacing as they worked on increasing their sources
of income.
She shook her head when she
realized that she was doing it again; her mother still scolded her whenever she
visited because it was always easy for her to get looped into one daydream
after another. The way she saw it, dreaming was a good.
It’s her dreams for Daniel that
kept her going no matter what, and from where she was standing that was all
that mattered.
Image from google
Labels: #EndTeenPregnancy, #Entrepreneurship, #Twefugge, Adolescent Health, Family Planning, Healthy Adolescents
