When Mehmet arrived at TCA with his mother, Gadija,* he was clearly near the end of his life. He weighed only ten kilograms, although he was six years old, having celebrated his birthday the previous month. Friends got together and gave him the gift of his dreams—a bicycle—but he was too weak ever to ride it.
His story, like that of any child who dies, was tragic. Gadija—then pregnant with Mehmet—and her husband, had fled to Zimbabwe to escape the war in Somalia. In Harare, she received a blood transfusion because she had anaemia. Unfortunately, the transfused blood was infected with HIV. Mehmet was born HIV positive, and only devoted care by Gadija kept him alive through the illnesses that afflicted his young life. Gadija’s mother-in-law lived in Johannesburg and invited the family to come to South Africa. This they did, hoping to get better health care for Mehmet. When the mother-in-law found out that Gadija and Mehmet were HIV positive, she forced her son to throw them out of the house.
After living on the streets of Johannesburg for a while, they came to Cape Town. I never found out from Gadija how she managed this, or why. Mehmet became a patient of the local Children’s Hospital, and was introduced to an Islamic HIV care group, with whom we were co-belligerents against HIV. The mother of one of the founders of the group took Gadija and Mehmet into her home. This was the family that gave him the bicycle for his birthday.
Gadija’s courage was greatly to be admired. When Mehmet was declared to be in the end stage of AIDS (before anti-retroviral therapy, remember), she asked the doctors if there was anything more that they could do for him. When they replied in the negative, she asked them to withdraw all treatment, other than pain control, and took him home to nurse him until he died.
Through TCA’s relationship with the Islamic care group, we admitted him to our Terminal Care Facility (later joyfully renamed The In-Unit, to distinguish it from Home-Based Care). Gadija remained with him for the duration of his stay.
When Mehmet came to us, what little strength he had was used up just trying to breathe. He lay in a cot next to the window, looking at the beautiful paintings of the birds on the walls. He made up for his lack of strength by his wonderful spirit, speaking Somali, Arabic, and English with equal fluency.
When we visited him late on the Saturday night, his mother asked Linda—my wife—to pray for him. Linda felt obliged to warn her that she would pray in the name of Jesus, whom we believe is God. “That’s all right”, she replied. “Islam doesn’t seem to have helped him much”.
On the Wednesday, although off duty, I was privileged to be present when Mehmet finally gave up the struggle. His Mom asked me: “Do you think Allah is taking him now?”. I replied, “Yes, I think this is the end”.
She immediately retreated to the far side of the room, saying that her culture did not permit a woman to be present at the death of a person. I told her to hold Mehmet’s hand, because that’s what he would want from his Mom. Hesitantly, she came across, took his hand, and talked to him as he died. She then hugged his body. Subsequently, she told me how glad she was that she had been with him at the end.
Our God is such a God of surprises! No one had ever considered the idea of our first patient being a Muslim, but it made a wonderful statement about the fact that the unconditional love of Jesus is for everyone, and is shown through his people.
A few of us attended the funeral. Suddenly, it made the tragedy of AIDS starkly real for us. AIDS had a face! I doubt that any of us slept well that night.
Although we went sincerely, in a gesture of solidarity, it was also a chance to show that, although we are steadfast in our Christian faith, there is no limit or condition imposed upon our care and compassion in the Name of Jesus.
Sadly, Mehmet was the first of many who died in our terminal care unit. What a joy it was when paediatric anti-retroviral therapy became easily available and we were faced with the ‘problem’ of what to do with all our healthy little patients! What a joy it was too, in the later history of the ministry, to find that God sometimes saved the life of a patient, even without the use of anti-retrovirals, when everyone had given up hope. This helped to teach us never to give up on a patient.
What even greater joy awaits us when, one day, we meet these children again, before the throne of our loving God!
“The ones who pleased the Lord will ask, ‘When did we give you something to eat or drink? When did we welcome you as a stranger or give you clothes to wear or visit you while you were sick or in jail?’ The king will answer, ‘Whenever you did it for any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did it for me.’” (Matthew 25:37–40 CEV)
* I have changed their names.