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45 The Way Life Is Ocean Maidza Life is a journey, a process where one comes across good and tough times. In the beginning I knew nothing about how it felt to be an orphan. Now I can tell you that it feels like being lost in the middle of nowhere, left in the middle of the ocean. This is a story with no beginning and no ending. It was on one of those days when I wasn’t in school because my mother was suffering from cancer. My father, who I had never known, and my relatives turned their backs on me. I remember that day when I was sitting next to her, watching her cough up blood. I saw how thin she was, to the extent that none of her clothes fitted her anymore. There was little I could do, except to look at her and wait for the Creator to do His will. Even then I woke up every morning looking forward to a brighter day. On that day I remember feeding my mother and everything that she ate came back out the same way. After this I did the household chores and for some reason the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I felt fear and I thought of my mother and I rushed to the single bed where she was lying. As I reached her everything seemed to stop, even the birds seem to stop singing their sweet melodies. The only thing I heard was the last groan of my mother and then she was gone. I fell down on my knees and screamed and asked the Lord how he could do such a terrible thing to me. I did not know how I was going to tell my one and only sister, Lisa. She knew nothing about death and here we were left all alone to face the rough, unpredictable road. When Lisa came back from school, I told her and she wept like never before. I tried to comfort her but it was like beating her and the tears continued to flow. With the help of neighbours we managed to bury my mother. What took me by surprise was that all my mother’s relatives showed up for the funeral, when they had previously refused to help, even to buy medication. I could not get over the fact that she had passed away, but with time I began to accept it. 46 Now my main responsibility was to take good care of Lisa. Unfortunately things did not go the way I thought they would. Lisa was taken away from me along with every single thing that had belonged to my mother. At last I realized why they had all attended the funeral. Day and night there was quarrelling in the house about who was going to take this and who was going to take that. The most painful thing was they left nothing but the building itself and in barely a week people came to view even that. It seemed that even the last thing that I had thought I would be left with was being sold. I live on the streets now and I have no blankets, my tattered clothes are my only source of warmth. I have not seen my beloved sister in a very long while. I hope that wherever she is that someone is taking good care of her. Indeed life is never a sweet song. ...

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