* Lavender Love *

Let us introduce ourselves;

I am Rhys and I am twelve years old.
I am Jane and I am twelve years old.
We are brother and sister.

To work out that we are twins is obvious but to work out the complications and predictions that we are being hit with concerning HIV/AIDS is not so obvious and yet so obvious and at best our point can easily be missed.

In the recent book by Clem Sunter and Alan Whiteside called "AIDS - The Challenge for South Africa" we are told that "at the start of the new century, South Africa probably had the largest number of HIV infected people of any country in the world. In 2000, the National Survey of women attending ante-natal clinics found that 24.7% were infected" good point but somehow not our point .... AND THEN THERE WAS EMMANUEL.

Emmanuel was born on the 3rd of September 2000. He came to us on the 5th of September 2000. He was two days old. His birth hadn't been registered and we took turns in the queue at the Department of the Interior. Each time our turn came, the man said we had the wrong papers, or, the Social worker needs to write a letter, or, we needed more details of the mother, or, or, or. Mom couldn't go as she was busy with the other babies and one of the volunteers who was going to take a turn, lost the papers causing even more work.

Our house is called the MORNING STAR and Rhys needs to tell you why. My mom says it will be cathartic for him, whatever that might mean. I'll look it up in the dictionary while Rhys tells you.

In December 1995 my sister Jane who was 7 years old, (loved Shakespeare even before Leonardo Di Caprio - need I say more) asked Mom what the word "symbolic" meant. Mom said, "why me? Can't you ask the teacher, that's what I'm paying school fees for" and told Jane to eat her supper before it went cold! She usually said that to me so I was chuffed that Jane was having a turn of Mom's routine speech. Jane just went on and on and it was obvious that it was going to be easier in the long run to "get it over with," cold haddock!!

Talk about Jane going on and on. Mom got stuck in with her Dame Glenda Butler bit, her arms and legs were everywhere as she told us of her Morning Star stuff. She said that for her it is symbolic of hope, trust, optimism and absolute faith in the power of good. Funny that I should remember that and not remember half the time what I did yesterday. I can also remember she had a gin and tonic.

Little did I know that those words would one day save our lives.

In March 1996 we had an armed robbery at our house. Jane and I were in bed reading, it was very early but we had a good book to read. Next thing I know Mom was being dragged in to our room with a gun pointing at her head!!!

Jane slipped under the duvet and stayed there. I've often been told that I am "unusually slow" and still can't work out the difference between that and "usually slow". It's a fact, I'm slow.

I was sure that Jane was terrified and knew that she'd be storming heaven.

They tied me up with our intercom wire and were swearing and saying the most terrible things to Mom. I couldn't do anything and just prayed that Jane would stay put.

When they asked Mom what she wanted to say to the "little white bastard" (me) before they shot me, the impossible happened - Mom was speechless!! After what felt like forever she said to me that it was ok to be scared, she was also scared. She meant well but with or without permission, was I scared.

As I write this I can still feel the fear a bit but it's not so bad now. It was then that the miracle happened. "Unusually slow" me, found myself saying and believing, "don't be scared Mom, remember the Morning Star." It was really wierd, they untied me, dragged Mom out and as the door slammed I heard the key being turned, Jane and I were locked in. We didn't know then that it was Mom who turned the key. They took the car and some other stuff and left. So if anyone were to ask me what the Morning Star means to me I would do the Sir Rhys Butler bit.

Four years later ... And then there was Emmannuel.

Emmanuel was very small even for a two day old baby. He looked very fragile, like the dolls that people collect. During his struggle Mom used to say to him, "if you make it sweetheart, I'll teach you how to play the piano." His fingers were so long. Mom is a music teacher and thinks there's no problem that music can't help to solve. She bought a lovely CD called Majors ofr Minors. Emmanuel's favourite was Mozart's Allegro. It was definitely his favourite, you could just tell.

He was never well and was in and out of hopsital a lot. In between times we got our hopes up but it was never very long before he was sick again. We "knew" he was going to die, we didn't know how, where or when. He spent his only Christmas in hospital. On Christmas Eve, at Mass we were very sad and confused, up and down, up and down and then for the last time .. only down.

Emmanuel came home from hospital in January and Mom was told he was dying. She took him all over the place to try to get help for him. She says that Medicross at Edenvale were really nice to her and the doctor said she had two choices, Give the nightmare or Live the nightmare.

Mom thinks she's good at pretending everything is alright but really she's not, we know the signs. Volume of music goes up and she tells us to sort our bookcases out! We knew there was something wrong that evening because we weren't told to brush our teeth. Mom was on the phone a lot, holding Emmanuel and looking desperate. We went to bed but didn't sleep too well. Some men arrived in an ambulance at about 3.00am and although they seemed to be insisting that they were the trauma team they also said the doctor could only come out if it was a trauma! Enter, Dame Glenda Butler ... "be specific" (another favourite of hers when she's doing the school fees routine). They said a car accident or something. Dame Glenda, "you want a car accident, I'll give you one. I'll put Emmanuel in his car seat and drive straight through our wall if that will bring the doctor out." The doctor didn't come out. We've now been blacklisted for not paying! That's when it really hit us, Mom was on her own, Emmanuel was dying at the wrong time of night. No reply or answering machines. We went to sleep.

That morning the table was set for breakfast as usual, Mom told us to brush our teeth so we thought everything must be ok, Mom's eyes were very red. We weren't hungry. Something was wrong. There she was running around like a lunatic with the lavender air freshner. We knew Emmanuel was dead, we could smell it. Lavender Love.

We didn't want to go to school but we had to. When we came home Mom told us Emmanuel had died at 05:25am in her arms to the music he loved. It was Wednesday 24th January 2001. He was four and a half months old. The men who came to take him that morning wouldn't let him take his favourite teddy. We kept it in out "precious drawer." The Memorial Service was the day before our birthday which is the 30th January. The service was really lovely. Emmanuel's favourite music was played, we cried. The ladies made a lovely tea. Our big brother Stephen came to be with Mom but he kept saying "I can't do this" at least he tried. We all went, all the babies in their best clothes. We noticed the adults talk a lot, some even cried and then they went home.

Some months later someone we knew called Neville ended it all for himself, he was too sad for this world. We were told that he didn't want flowers. After a really depressing funeral service (if you hadn't known better you'd have thought the poor guy was either going straight to hell or having to hang around a bit first.) Mom asked his partner if Neville could take a teddy with him to give to Emmanuel. Nothing will ever be more certain. If Neville wasn't going to Heaven there's no way that we'd have given him Emmanuel's teddy.

Emmanuel will never be a percentage of anything, he was a precious child with the longest fingers. We can't do the maths about AIDS and how it will affect South Africa but Emmanuel's life and death taught us not only to look at the big picture and think of it as a disease, remember ..... And then there was Emmanuel.