Thread by @Tunde_OD

Happy Mother’s Day to the valiant women who hold our world together with love.
In loving memory of the beautiful mother in this picture who gave her life for the sake of her children, It is important to share her story with the world.

A thread...

November 2018, I met a boy(Ayomide), he was exceptional during our chess training sessions. I wanted to meet his parents and tell them how amazing their son was.
He took me to a dusty shed where a woman sat calmly in a plastic chair...
He hugged her and said that was his mum.

She had such a beautiful smile, I remembered seeing the same smile on her son’s face whenever he won a chess game😊
I introduced myself as her son’s chess coach.
She went on to explain how she had always wanted to come thank us for the impact on her son’s life...

But couldn’t make it down because of her condition, that was when I realized that her right leg had been amputated.
She couldn’t afford to get a wheelchair so she used wooden crutches instead.

I asked her what happened and she narrated this very tragic occurrence....

October 2017, things had degraded from bad to worse for her and her two children, they had gone two days without eating anything. Her older son Jamiu had a bone infection that caused his right leg to swell and stood a risk of losing the leg if he didn’t get medical attention.

Like every good mother, she made up her mind to go out and do anything so her children could at least eat that night.
She went to the refuse dumping ground at Ojota Bustop(Lagos Nigeria) to pick out plastic bottles for recyclers.
She continued doing this for several weeks.

In that time, she was saving up the little money she made so she could take her son to the hospital for proper treatment when tragedy struck.
The Excavator machine at the dump site lost control and cut through her right leg while she was scavenging for plastic bottles...

The preceding months after that tragic occurrence were the worst, she was never taken to the hospital as there was no one to foot the medical bills.
She lost a lot of blood and the wound got terribly infected.
She was treated locally and had some blood transfusion.

Their small room was constantly filled with blood and pus. She had just her two sons by her side and a few good hearted neighbors.
The kids had to stop school.
Her husband had abandoned them years ago and the kids never got to know their father.

There was no one to help them.

My heart plunged into deep sympathy for this woman, they had it worse than most people on earth.
She survived that ordeal and came out stronger.
On that day, I committed to being a permanent part of their lives.
She was a very jovial person 😊
She had jokes for days lol

We helped them raise some money for their rent as the landlord was threatening to evict them.
Her older son Jamiu, had dropped out of school and was an apprentice at a local mechanic’s workshop.
I encouraged him to join his brother Ayomide at our chess Centre on Saturdays.

September 2019, I got a call from Jamiu crying that his mum was very sick.
I dashed down to the community and saw her lying in distress.
She had lost a lot of weight and was breathing heavily with trembling hands.
I immediately ordered a taxi and took her to a hospital.

We rushed her to the emergency ward, a doctor attended to us immediately and they began to run several tests.
At first, she was diagnosed with acute malaria then the absolute shocker came when the lab attendant came with the result confirming that she was also HIV positive...

This was my breaking point.

A myriad of thoughts flowed through my head as I looked outside the ward where the kids were standing barefooted with a distraught look on their faces.
They were definitely around their mum’s blood a lot and there was a chance they could be infected.

I had them test the boys while I prayed in my heart- the result was negative.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell them their mum was HIV positive.

I remembered carrying her with bare hands to the heart to heart foundation so she could get her Anti-retroviral drugs.
With hot tears rolling down her cheeks, she told me to take care of her kids if anything happened to her.
I kept reassuring her that HIV wasn’t a death sentence.

We got the drugs and some counseling by the doctor who mentioned that she had to use one capsule everyday for the rest of her life while eating fruits and vegetables.

I had to fill in as her next of kin as the kids were too young and didn’t have a contact info.

When we got home that night, I sat by her bed, held her hands and told her not to give up for the sake of her kids.
I kept promising that she wasn’t going to be alone through this ordeal.
It started raining heavily and their room was filled with water from the leaks in the roof.

I was lost in a deep euphoria of my own thoughts as everything faded into oblivion...
They lived in one of the worst slums in Ikorodu, how would she ever be able to keep up with living a healthy life in this place.
Their house was without a door!

Life was unkind to this family.

My major dilemma was whether to tell the boys or not.
I thought about how the community was going to stigmatize them out of ignorance if word ever got out about her condition.
I was just a Chess coach and these problems were beyond my understanding.

I started reaching out to everyone I knew and pulling resources together to get them help when I got a call from the woman the nxt day insisting that she wanted to go back to the village.
I begged her to stay so we could take adequate care of her but her mind was already made up.

Two weeks after she left Lagos for her home town in Ekiti state, I got a call on October 2nd 2019 that we had lost her.
It was the most painful moment of my life, I blamed myself for not doing enough.

Now her two sons were left alone in the world.

@chessinslums put them on educational scholarship support and they moved in with one of our volunteers for a while.
Jamiu (15 years old) and Ayomide (13 years old).
The only other alternative was to take the boys back to the village.

That was never going to happen.

It’s been almost three years since I met these amazing boys and I have come to love them as my brothers.
Jamiu has gone on to be the best player in our academy, he’s an avid reader and dreams to become a mechanical engineer.
We also got him a laptop and hooked him up with coding.

Ayomide, the boy with a captivating smile is also a very talented rapper and dreams to be a musician someday😅.
He’s doing okay in school and is one of the best junior players in our academy.

Last week sunday, we had our first Chess in slums monthly closed tournament with 50k in cash prizes for the kids in our academy as an incentive so they can help support their families from playing chess.
Jamiu won the senior category while Ayomide won the junior category in style

I was incredibly proud of them after that tournament and I know their Mum is up there in heaven with so much gladness in her heart too.
It’s been a little over a year since we lost her but she remains forever etched in our hearts.

Keep resting in heaven Mummy Jamiu🕊