It’s Always Darkest Before Dawn

I went through a very trying time in my life once.  I was so depressed. 

So many things had happened, gradually extinguishing my once bright spirit.

I’ve heard many people describe depression as a mountainous wave that sweeps you away before you’ve learnt how to swim.  You drown – really fast.

On one of my darkest days, I met a certain young lady on my way back home.

She had just come from knocking on my front door.  Getting no response, she had turned

To walk to the opposite house on the street I lived on.  I greeted her.  She looked exhausted; she looked like a street person – scantily clad.  She clutched a small 2 or so year old boy in hand.  Another 8 month old baby was strapped to her back.  All tired.  All hungry. None of them were shod.  I asked the young lady where she was going.  Grateful

For a sympathetic ear, she broke down in a torrent of sympathetic tears.

The young lady told me that she was 18 years old.  She said her name was Millicent.  Those had indeed been her two children.  Millicent said she had run into some difficulty

When her husband of two years had died, earlier that same month.  Her mother-in-law

(Whom she had been living with at the time of her husband’s death) had lit her home on

Fire. Millicent said this had been an attempt to kill her children.  Their paternal grandmother did not want the responsibility of supporting them without their father’s help.  Returning home from fetching dinner, Millicent noticed her home alight.  Dropping

Her groceries, she ran in and rescued her choking children from the flames.  Both had barely escaped with their lives.  Gathering her children, Millicent left with only the clothes on her back and had not seen her mother-in-law since.

Since then, Millicent had dragged her poor children from house to house of every relative

She could think of.  All had turned her away with money only sufficing one meal for her

And her children.  In desperation – Millicent had walked almost 100 kms (about     miles)

Going door to door in search of assistance.  Her tumultuous trek had led her to me.

 I told her to come in.  I fixed the lot of them some food while Millicent and I thought what to do.  I had been having a hard time digesting an unplanned pregnancy that had

Left me a virtual prisoner in my son’s grandparent’s house.  I had been overworked, ill-treated, verbally abused and denied any funds to look after myself.  The situation had left me without any purpose for living – or so I thought. 

Earlier that same day, my son’s grandparent’s had left a small sum of money to buy gro ceries, the first time ever! I felt kind of anxious taking the money because it was given as though it was at gunpoint.  ‘Now here is someone that really needs it’ I thought.  As if on cue, Millicent began sobbing uncontrollably declaring that she would have to end her own life.  She sobbed that she had just realized how much she had overlooked when thinking what she had to provide her children with a ‘normal’ life.  Millicent had become overwhelmed by this thought and declared that the only way to ease her family’s suffering was if they were to all die.

I protested, stating there would always be ups and downs in life. I said that as long as a person persevered through a difficult situation, there would be a light at the end of the tu

Nnel.  Midway through my own desperate rant I realized that there was a lot that everybody had to live for.  However insignificant or small a life is it is truly precious.

If someone like Millicent was still struggling through life, then I had no right to complain

Because it can really get a lot worse.  I gave Millicent the sum of money that I had, her and her children ate and left – promising that they would return at the same time every week until they found themselves on their feet. 

Millicent never came back again.  If she did she would have met a less than hospitable welcome at the hands of my son’s grandparents.  No, they would not be the least bit impressed to see a pauper begging for money at their front doorstep.  I hope that she is alright all the same.  But more than I helping her, she had helped me to see that no matter

How bad things seem, there is always someone in a worse situation than you.  As long as that person is out there holding on, then you too have the courage to hold on……….