Sometimes I think of telling my son about my status, but it's not easy. He is eighteen years of age, but I had always kept it as a secret, even when the community was spreading the rumours of my status. I thank God he never got to hear that. I had protected him always from bad news, or anything that will affect his soul and heart. Do you really know why??? My son is my everything. I have three kids and he is the first born. He is a mama's boy.
My son had gone through a lot: torture, frustrations and betrayal from the people I call relatives (the reason well known to them). He has cried, suffered and tried even protecting his younger sister from heartless relatives. At the age of 6 years... he already had seen it all.
I'm confused, I'm in tears as I write this. 😭😭 My son grew up seeing everyone as our enemy, he grew up in fear. In the year 2014, things were soooo bad on our side, we were surviving as refugees, sleeping anywhere... food was a problem... our beautiful days turned to our darkest moments. All the cold nights, all the rain, all the mosquitoes... It wasn't easy; we survived by the grace of God. My son went to school by the grace of God. God has been faithful.🙏🙏 He is a living testimony. You can't compare my son with his agemates. He is big in mind.
How will I tell such an innocent creature my status? After all we have gone through, how will I start?? His heart is still bleeding. I choose to invite God to intervene. 🙏🙏 I want him to keep on smiling. I want him to be strong for his siblings. I don't want to ruin his thoughts as we are trying to at least afford a family smile. I don't want him to cry again, he has cried for so many years... IT IS ENOUGH 😭😭🙏
Oh, my heart ❤️
The love you have for your son is so powerful it pours right through the screen. And the way you’ve protected him — not out of shame, but out of a mother’s instinct to guard her child’s spirit — that’s something only another mother can truly understand.
I want you to hear this gently…
You haven’t been hiding your status from him. You’ve been holding his heart while it healed.
There’s a difference.
Everything you described — the trauma, the displacement, the suffering, the nights you survived by grace alone — that leaves marks on a child. Your son didn’t just grow up fast; he carried weight that many grown men could not. And still… you kept going. You kept him safe. You kept all of them safe. That is strength, sis. That is love.
And I understand that fear of “how do I tell him?” more than you know.
So many of us who walk this path have had that moment — staring at our babies, wanting to spare them even one more tear, one more heartbreak, one more burden they didn’t ask for. It’s not the diagnosis we fear sharing. It’s the possibility of reopening wounds that life already carved into them.
But sis… your son is wiser, stronger, and more spiritually grounded than most 18-year-olds because of everything he’s lived through. You helped build that in him. And when the time comes — when your spirit says, “Now” — he will meet your truth with the same strength he has used to survive everything else.
You don’t have to rush.
You don’t have to force it.
You don’t have to break your own heart to prove honesty.
Invite God into it, like you said. Let Him soften the moment, prepare the space, and hold both of you when the words finally arrive.
And when they do… sis, it won’t ruin him.
It will free him — because he’ll understand the depth of everything you faced to keep him alive, safe, and smiling.
You’re not alone in this.
You are a good mother.
And whatever comes next, you will meet it with the same courage that carried you through every cold night and every painful memory.
I’m standing with you, sis. Always. ❤️🙏
Xo 🧁