The one you can't help but love....
By Emmmmmmmmma Meyer
1 Jun 2009
I have never been know for my love of children, mostly because I don't really have a love of children. Let me correct that: I DIDN'T have a love of children. But that was before I met Christopher...
Roughly 3.5 seconds into a photo project for a young foundation in eastern Ghana I fell head over-heels for a little baby boy. His laughter, his cheeky smile, his stellar dance moves and most importantly, his shockingly big heart. For whatever freakishly adorable reason this little eighteen month-old baby boy wanted nothing more than to make everyone around him as happy as he was. And he sure did.
Born to two HIV-Positive parents (both died not long after his birth) baby Christopher was quickly shunned from his village and sent to live with the only distant relatives willing to take him. In the early months of his life he was plagued by malnutrition as a result of his family's shame-induced (in most rural areas of Ghana HIV is considered a curse, and those who carry it are consequentially considered to be a bad omen to those around them) neglect. By chance or fate or whatever you choose to believe, be was given a second chance to live. He was taken in to a nearby orphanage.
It is clear that even if it is the only life you know, growing up in a third world-country isn't easy; the public sanitation (or lack thereof) is forty shades of wrong, the public health-care system, though growing, leaves way too much to be desired, and the government funded schools are often questionable at best. It is even harder for kids like Christopher; kids with HIV. In all likelihood, if not adopted, Christopher will live a life of great ridicule as a result of those around him.
Yet Christopher despite all his disadvantages and set-backs is even more of an amazing little guy. It is hard for a single day to go by that is not filled with a thought, or many, of him. Even though statistics and rules of the Ghanaian society suggest he won't make it past twenty, I want to believe that he will. He is too special not to.
His effortless charm and his heart-wrenching story are not the only reasons I chose to feature him as "one I love"; it is his resilience and his fight and his strength of character, something seemingly unnatural for the brief time he has been on this planet, that makes him unquestionably deserving of the love of anyone that crosses his path. Even someone like me who didn't know they had such love in them to begin with.
1 response
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Mormon Scientist said (2 Jun 2009):
He is beautiful. Thank you for your story.
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