Meeting Primrose


 

     This photo means a lot to me. You know the phrase, You’ve come a long way baby? That’s what I think when I see this photo.

     I was just off a 24 hour flight from the US to Zimbabwe. Only a few hours earlier at the airport in Johannesburg, I had sent one last text to my family in the US: Arrive in Zim in a few hours and will be holding Loveness soon. Instead, when I got off the plane in Zimbabwe, I was told Loveness had died. This photo was taken a few hours after that.

     I had been taken to the hospital where Loveness’s body was in the morgue. I still wanted to hold her. But first with a heavy heart and tears in my eyes, I passed through the Children’s Ward at the hospital and met these three children, all abandoned. I am holding Tanya, Cheepo is sleeping in the crib they all shared and staring me down is Primrose.  There were a total of six abandoned children in the hospital on that day. Four infants, including Loveness, had died the previous week.

Kuda, Primrose, Cheepo, Tariro and Brighton (May 2012)
     Nearly four years later, you can see Primrose and Cheepo next to each other in the photo we are using for the Share Your Heart campaign on IndieGoGo (link below) to raise money to send the children to private boarding schools in Zimbabwe.  All these children have been supported through House of Loveness since that first day I met them (Tanya was placed in another orphanage). Primrose will be the first girl to attend boarding school from proceeds to the House of Loveness Share Your Heart campaign.

     This photo reminds me that sometimes your tears can water the seeds of what is to bloom next. Primrose, You’ve come a long way baby.
 
http://www.indiegogo.com/share-your-heart

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