Tag: Mother

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Health

Abebech Gobena, the ‘Mom Teresa’ of Africa, Dies at 85

Abebech Gobena, the ‘Mother Teresa’ of Africa, Dies at 85

Abebech Gobena was returning from a pilgrimage to the holy site of Gishen Mariam, about 300 miles north of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, when she saw the woman and her baby.

It was 1980, and Ms. Gobena was passing through an area recently stricken by drought and an accompanying famine. All along the road were bodies — many dead, some dying, some still able to sit up and ask for food.

“There were so many of these hungry people sprawled all over, you could not even walk,” she said in a 2010 interview with CNN. She handed out what little she had — a loaf of bread, a few liters of water.

At first, Ms. Gobena thought the woman was asleep, and she watched as the baby tried to suckle at her breast. Then she realized the mother was dead.

A man nearby was collecting bodies. He told her he was waiting for the child, a girl, to die.

Without thinking further, Ms. Gobena picked up the baby, wrapped her in a cloth and took her home to Addis Ababa. She returned the next day with more food and water.

“One of the men dying by the side of the road said to me, ‘This is my child. She is dying. I am dying. Please save my child,’” she recalled. “It was a terrible famine. There were no authorities. The government at that time did not want the famine to be public knowledge. So I had to pretend the children were mine and smuggle them out.”

By the end of the year she had 21 children living with her and her husband, Kebede Yikoster. At first supportive, he eventually gave her an ultimatum: him or the children.

Ms. Gobena left him, and most of her possessions, taking the children to live with her in a shack in the woods. She sold her jewelry to raise money, then eked out an income selling injera bread and honey wine. Unable to pay the children’s school fees, she found a tutor to visit the shack.

She took in more children, and after years of battling government bureaucracy in Ethiopia, in 1986 she managed to register her organization — Abebech Gobena Children’s Care and Development Association — as a nonprofit, enabling her to raise money and accept grants.

She bought farmland outside Addis Ababa, where she and the orphans worked, and sold the produce to fund the orphanage. They also built dozens of latrines, public kitchens and water points around the city.

Today the organization, known by its acronym in Amharic, Agohelma, is one of the largest nonprofits in Ethiopia. Along with its orphanage, it provides free school for hundreds of children, HIV/AIDS prevention and maternal health care — according to its own estimate, some 1.5 million Ethiopians have benefited from its services since 1980. They and many others call her the “Mother Teresa of Africa.”

In June Ms. Gobena contracted Covid-19. She entered the intensive care unit at St. Paul’s Hospital in Addis Ababa, where she died on July 4. She was 85. Yitbarek Tekalign, a spokesman for Agohelma, confirmed her death.

“Abebech Gobena was one of the most selfless and pure-hearted people I ever met,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization and a former Ethiopian minister of health, said in a statement. “She helped many children not only to survive, but succeed in life.”

Abebech Gobena Heye was born on Oct. 20, 1935, in Shebel Abo, a village north of Addis Ababa in what was then Shewa Province. That same month, Italian forces in Eritrea invaded Ethiopia, setting off the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Her father, Gofe Heye, was a farmer who died in the fighting.

Ms. Gobena and her mother, Wosene Biru, went to live with her grandparents. When she was 10 her family arranged for her to marry a much older man, but she ran home soon after the ceremony. Her family returned her to her husband, who kept her locked in a room at night.

Ms. Gobena managed to escape through a hole in the roof and made her way to Addis Ababa, where she found a family to take her in. She attended school and later found work as a quality control inspector with a company that exported coffee and grain.

The job afforded her a stable, middle-class life, but after establishing Agohelma she lived in near poverty. She never took a salary, and her bedroom was attached to one of the orphanage dormitories.

Ms. Gobena — known to many as Emaye, an Amharic word that loosely translates as “Wonderful Mother” — did not simply raise the children under her charge. Along with their classroom education, she made sure that they learned marketable skills, like metalworking, embroidery and, more recently, photography. She gave the older children seed money to start their own businesses.

“I don’t have words to describe Emaye; she was my everything,” said Rahel Berhanu, a former Agohelma orphan, in an interview with the magazine Addis Standard. “After getting my diploma, I started working with her. She was a mother above mothers.’’

Ms. Gobena did not leave any immediate survivors, though she might disagree.

“I have no children of my own,” she told The Times of London in 2004, “but I have a family of hundreds of thousands, and I have absolutely no regrets.”

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World News

‘Mom, When Will You Come?’: The Covid Orphans of India

‘Mother, When Will You Come?’: The Covid Orphans of India

When Shawez, who had given up his studies to work with his father, returned home without his parents, the landlord had locked them out, saying he would give them the key only after the rent was paid. His uncle borrowed money to cover some of the debt so that Shawez and his siblings could collect their belongings.

Shawez’s younger sister, Kahkashan, 9, has been hit the hardest. Nearly every day, she picks up the phone and dials her mother, talking to her as if she were on the other end.

“Mother, when will you come? I miss you,” she says.

“My only dream is to educate my siblings,” Shawez said. “My mother would call me when I would be out for work and ask, ‘Son, it is getting late. When will you come home?’ Now no one will call me anymore,” he said.

In Pattapur, Sonali, too, feels as if she has lost her most powerful protector.

In a thick diary, on the page next to the one on which she has noted the dates of her parents’ deaths, Sonali jotted a poem dedicated to her mother.

On a recent day, she read it aloud to her siblings.

Undergoing the ups and downs of life, our mother brings us up.

Our mother is the tallest in this world, she is the one who can keep us well.

This world is barren without mother, this world is not the same place without her.

Mother bears the pain on our behalf, but we fail to bear the pain on mother’s behalf.

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World News

Mom of Killed Indigenous Man Advised to ‘Get It Collectively’ by Canadian Police

Mother of Killed Indigenous Man Told to ‘Get It Together’ by Canadian Police

OTTAWA – When seven police officers arrived at Debbie Baptiste’s house in August 2016, circling the house and carrying rifles, they informed her that her son was dead. Instead of comforting the grieving mother, they asked if she had been drinking and told her to “put it all together.”

The persistent treatment of Ms. Baptiste, a Cree woman, as well as other incidents of racial discrimination by police against her family were described in an independent review, which was released to the public on Monday, that examined the police’s conduct and investigation into the death of Colten Boushie, a 22-year-old Cree man in Saskatchewan.

The damning report by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Civilian Review and Complaints Commission found that officers treated Ms. Baptiste “with such insensitivity that her treatment amounted to a pretense of discrimination.” The surveillance group, which has no power to punish, also found that the police could not protect the evidence at the scene where Mr. Boushie was killed and destroyed records of the handling of the case.

“It felt like I was forever fighting a battle that could never be won,” Ms. Baptiste said at a press conference Monday. “The injustices of racism in the courtroom, the discrimination must stop. Things have to change. We need a change for the future generation. “

Mr Boushie was shot dead after he and four other Indians drove into Gerald Stanley’s property in August 2016. Mr Stanley testified in court that he believed their goal was theft, which he and his son were trying to prevent.

Mr Stanley was acquitted in 2018 after testifying that he accidentally shot Mr Boushie in the back of the head when his semi-automatic pistol exhibited a rare mechanical malfunction. The verdict shocked many Indigenous Canadians.

In a country where politicians typically shy away from court rulings, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has made healing Canada’s relations with its indigenous peoples a priority, released a message of support and met with Mr Boushie’s family after the 2018 trial.

On Monday, Mr Trudeau told reporters that the treatment of Mr Boushie’s family and friends was “unacceptable”, adding, “Unfortunately, we have seen examples of systemic racism within the RCMP in many of our institutions and we need to do so.” better.”

The National Police Federation, a union that represents the mounted police force, disagreed with the report’s findings, saying it “promotes a perspective that disregards our members and challenges their impartiality, commitment and professionalism.” In a separate response to the report, the union rejected the commission’s report on what happened at Ms. Baptiste, claiming that it “only reflected the Boushie family’s interpretation of the interaction” and not the reports of the officials present.

“The RCMP union is still asking the people of this country not to believe this woman,” Chris Murphy, lawyer for the Boushie family, told reporters. “Shame on you.”

The killing and acquittal remain a source of anger for many Indigenous Canadians who have argued the case, which has exposed significant flaws in the Canadian legal system. Mr Boushie’s family and others said the police were racially discriminatory towards them while being respectful of a farmer who was ultimately charged with murder.

Mr. Boushie was out swimming with friends when a tire fell on her Ford Escape near Mr. Stanley’s farm in central Saskatchewan. Mr Stanley testified that he and his son believed the group, many of whom were drunk, were trying to steal vehicles. The two men came out with guns and attacked the escape with a hammer. After Mr. Boushie was killed, the others fled.

As a result, the commission said, police descended on Ms. Baptiste’s home in Red Pheasant Cree Nation, her indigenous community, with two goals: to inform them of Mr. Boushie’s death and to look for a member of Mr. Boushie’s group Friends on a related investigation into theft and attempted theft. No one in the group was ultimately charged with theft.

Officers armed with rifles circled Ms. Baptiste’s house and told her about her son’s death when she came to the porch. After hearing the news, Ms. Baptiste collapsed and was taken to the house by police.

“MS. Baptiste was concerned about the news they had just given her. A member told her to bring it together,” the report said. “One or more RCMP members smelled their breath,” apparently because of it Signs of alcohol.

Although they lacked a required search warrant, police officers ransacked Ms. Baptiste’s home.

Back at the scene, the report found lax investigative practices. Immediately thereafter, little effort was made to gather forensic evidence and little was done to protect evidence on-site. Despite bad weather predictions, the Ford Escape that killed Mr Boushie was not covered, allowing rain to wash away blood spatter evidence before forensic scientists arrived about three days later, the commission said.

The commission said it also had “serious concerns” about the failure of the Serious Crimes Division to visit the scene when it took over the case. She also criticized the police for failing to tell Mr. Stanley, his wife, and son not to discuss the case together before making statements and that they were together in a family car that was part of the crime scene assembled police station were allowed to drive.

The report also found that the police were destroying records and transcripts of their communications from the time of the murder, which were in accordance with standard on-file records, but knowing that Mr Boushie’s family and the commission had filed complaints for which they were Files would have been relevant.

“We have recognized that there is systemic racism in the RCMP,” the Mounted Police Department in Saskatchewan said in a statement, adding that it plans to implement the recommendations in the commission’s report.

In addition to making recommendations that include reviewing the procedures with the officers involved in the case as well as reviewing general Mounties practices in this part of Saskatchewan, the commission said that cultural awareness training should be offered to all police officers. “Taking into account the factors identified in the latest research. “

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Brenda Lucki, who had the opportunity to comment on the Commission’s findings prior to their publication, said she accepted the main findings, despite rejecting a few small points in the report

“This entire judicial system from top to bottom must be restored,” said chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, which represents the First Nations in Saskatchewan, at a press conference. “Brenda Lucki, what are you going to do instead of just saying that we agree with what has been found? Big thing. Brenda Lucki, do something. ”

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Health

My Mom Died After I Was 7. I’m Grieving 37 Years Later.

My Mother Died When I Was 7. I’m Grieving 37 Years Later.

February 17, 2021

Delayed grief is sometimes triggered by an event later in life, experts say.

I’m in my basement looking for a file when I come across the cards and pictures – a small Manila envelope with my mother’s remains. She died in April 1983 at the age of 30 in an apartment in Van Nuys, California. I don’t even know the exact date.

My brother and I were told that her biker friend, a guy named Eddie, found her dead in the shower. I was 7

I lived with my grandparents, my federal guardians in my mother’s absence, in a town 15 minutes outside of Boston. After school and on many weekends I was also looked after by my foster mother Esther. The state paid to help my grandparents. It was also the state that had removed my brother and me from the apartment we shared with my mother Denise just before my first birthday. Denise was addicted.

As I later learned, her fall in the shower actually happened during a seizure caused by constant drug use. She died of an overdose.

Back in the present, I pondered the relics: a letter my mother wrote to me and my brother, another to my grandmother just before my mother was about to enter the rehab she never made it to, a picture of her on her 21st birthday and some things from high school. The pieces of my mother’s life are spread out in front of me like a jumbled puzzle. I wipe my eyes and am surprised to find tears. I never cry for my mom so I wonder why now? I am a 44 year old woman, mother of four children. The woman, whom I never actually called “Mama”, has been dead for more than 37 years. That is longer than she was alive.

A few days later, while reading an article online, I come across a term that is new to me: delayed grief. It is a grief response that occurs later, not at the time of loss, and is sometimes triggered by an event where I discover the artifacts in my mother’s life.

Hope Edelman, author of The AfterGrief: Finding Your Way Down the Arc of Loss, said it was not surprising that meeting my mother as an adult elicited a grief response through her belongings. Ms. Edelman has been writing about grief for over 20 years after losing her own mother at 17.

I read these letters when my mother first sent them to me in 1983 and have seen the pictures before. But the loss feels different now. I understand her death as a mother and not as her daughter. I understand the grief she must have felt without her children. The Strawberry Shortcake card, which arrived shortly before my birthday, said, “I love you very much.” She signed the card with two more declarations of love and X and O until she ran out of white space. I felt disappointed when I read it.

“You mourned all that you could then,” said Ms. Edelman. “We rethink loss and understand it differently at different times in our lives.”

Ms. Edelman said that certain milestones or life events cause complicated heartache to bubble back into the air. Andrea Warnick, a Toronto and Guelph, Ontario-based psychotherapist who specializes in grief therapy, refers to it as outbursts of grief.

Nadine Melhem, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, has studied childhood grief related to the sudden death of parents. She said the nature of the relationship with the person who died has proven to be an important factor in people’s grief. Additional losses and prolonged stressors could trigger grief, she said, which could certainly have been a reason for my most recent grief reaction.

As the world grapples with the Covid-19 pandemic, many people are losing loved ones without being able to be with them at the end of their lives, or in some cases even seeing their bodies for a while after death. The pandemic also affects funeral and memorial rituals, which usually celebrate a person’s life.

Dr. Melhem said she expected complicated or prolonged grief responses from a subset of those grieving over a loss from the pandemic. She is conducting an online study that looks at stress and grief responses in people who have lost someone to Covid-19. Among the sample of 7,353 respondents, she found that 55 percent of those who lost someone to the coronavirus reported intense grief responses that could predict continued, relentless grief in the future. Interestingly, similar rates have been reported for both adolescents and adults.

Ms. Edelman said that children’s initial grieving process is influenced by the way people around them deal with their grief. When my mother died, my grandmother plowed through her loss by checking boxes on her to-do list. Hull on delta flight. Funeral mass. Thank you cards. She believed overcoming loss meant being strong.

Dr. Melhem agreed, saying that her research found that the grief of surviving parents or caregivers is an important factor in predicting children’s grief responses, as it can affect “whether there is an environment that eases grief”.

Mrs. Warnick said my grandmother might have tried to protect me from grief. What I remember in the days and months after my mother passed away was my own guilt for grieving for her. Whenever I cried for the woman who attacked me, I was afraid that the women who stayed behind to raise me, my grandmother and foster mother, would feel hurt. I also didn’t feel I had the right to mourn a woman I didn’t know.

My grief lacked validity. In fact, there was typically even less support for the grieving process in the early 1980s than there is today, especially for children.

Dr. Melhem said that when I was a kid, research didn’t pay much attention to grief in research. When she and her colleagues published a study on survivors in 2011, she said she had not only filled a gap in grief research, but also how grief in children presented itself and progressed over time. Additionally, a study she and her colleagues published in 2018 shed light on the impact childhood grief can have on a child’s mental health.

We have come a long way in understanding and processing grief for many types of loss. I finally understand the relevance of my grief, past and present. I took the liberty of mourning.

“Grief is a very healthy experience and we have every right to it,” said Ms. Warnick.

Nicole Johnson is a freelance writer working on a memoir about addiction, abandonment, and the pop culture that shaped her GenX childhood.