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    A Miracle Life
    A Miracle Life
    A Miracle Life
    Ebook114 pages1 hour

    A Miracle Life

    By Theresa Nyirenda

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    About this ebook

    A Miracle Life is a MUST read book for every woman, parent, teacher, counselor and the general public. It is a book that will touch everyone that reads it. The book tells of the dilemma of a woman who had to suffer the agonizing problems of a child who could not understand why he was different from other children who could easily read and write. It tells of the problem a grandmother had of bringing up a child, born prematurely and who turned out to be dyslexic. The book tells of a society which knew nothing of dyslexia and thought the child was abnormally dull and could not be helped. The woman struggled and managed to get her child through to High School.



    The child himself suffered ridicule from his peers and extreme embarrassment from society which did not understand him and which rejected him at times. In the end Tiza becomes lonely and withdrawn. He starts fearing to go to school because his class mates laughed at him when he failed to read and write properly. The trauma of it all is agonizing.



    Theresa Nyirenda has resolved that no other woman should suffer the way she and her grandchild suffered because of lack of knowledge on Dyslexia. Through this book, she has taken a stand to sensitize the public and lobby everybody concerned that Dyslexia is real and dyslexics should be helped because these people have special gifts and if well trained, they could become responsible citizens in the country and the world.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse
    Release dateFeb 11, 2011
    ISBN9781456725990
    A Miracle Life

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      Book preview

      A Miracle Life - Theresa Nyirenda

      Chapter One

      Heeeah! The noise was coming from outside. I looked through the kitchen window and saw two little boys fighting. The smaller of the two fell to the ground and the group of boys watching the fight yelled louder, urging the bigger boy to fight on. The boy fell on top of the smaller one and was about to start pounding him when another boy came running from the corner of the house, just as I was about to go and separate the two fighting boys.

      Stop it, stop fighting Mwansa. Can’t you see that you are hurting Chichi? Tiza, the boy who came running from the corner of the house said, and yanked Mwansa off Chichi while picking up the whimpering little boy.

      Stop crying Chichi, everything is alright now, said Tiza. Go in the kitchen and grandma will give you something to eat, he told the little boy.

      Tiza then went to the group of boys who had been cheering on the fight, as Chichi ran to the kitchen to get something to eat from grandma.

      How could you boys cheer on the fight of the two young boys like that, especially when you saw that the little boy, Chichi, was going to be hurt badly, Tiza exclaimed while the other boys hung their heads down in shame. You boys ought to be ashamed of yourselves for urging the fight on like that, he said. As for you Mwansa, he said, looking directly at the boy who was fighting, next time you want to pick up a fight, choose someone your age and not little boys like Chichi. You may end up causing serious injury to someone, Tiza said.

      That was exactly like Tiza to show concern and compassion for the disadvantaged. He is always so kind and considerate to others. He has wisdom beyond that of his peers. It is so difficult to imagine him being dyslexic.

      Chichi came back with a cob of maize in hand. He was a cousin to Tiza, his mother being the younger sister to Tiza’s mother. When Chichi joined the boys again, Tiza told Mwansa to apologize to Chichi for hurting him. He made the two boys shake hands and make up. The two boys did what they were told to do, held hands and joined the other boys playing.

      As I stood at the kitchen door, watching the scene outside, my thoughts went back to the time when my own children were young and growing up. They were as happy and lively as the bunch of children playing outside now. None of my five children gave me any serious problem while growing up. They were healthy and intelligent in school. Like any other child, they were naughty sometimes, especially the boy, Niza.

      Niza was such a naughty boy that sometimes it really worried me. I remember the time when he was about six or seven years old. He used to carry his catapults everywhere. He used the catapults on anything. He aimed them at birds, stray cats and even passing vehicles. His aim was mostly harmless because it did not hit the target. But one unfortunate day, the stone from the catapult hit a passing vehicle and although nothing was broken, the driver of the vehicle was very angry. He stopped his car and chased after Niza into the kitchen where I was preparing the evening meal. The stranger whizzed past me and followed the boy into the sitting room and then into the bedroom where the boy hid himself under the bed. The man was so angry that he said some terrible things to us about some irresponsible parents rearing undisciplined children. He even called me and my husband ignorant and amateurs in parenthood. Up to now I cannot figure out what he meant by that. But the fact remained that our son was wrong and we apologized profusely to the angry man.

      When I related the incident to my friends later on, they laughed but they assured me that the boy would change when he grew up. They told me that it was normal behavior for boys of his age to use a catapult on anything moving, lizards, turtles, birds etc. My friends were right. Niza grew up to be gentle, loving and very protective of his four sisters.

      I recalled all that as I looked at the group of boys playing with my grandsons outside.

      Come on boys, I said from the kitchen door. Come all of you and get a cob each of this delicious fresh green maize.

      As the boys came trooping into the court yard where a huge bowl of fresh boiled maize stood on the table, I stood there ready to dish out the maize to the boys. The place was filled with the aroma from the steaming maize.

      Careful boys, I said as I handed each boy a cob of maize. These cobs are still hot. Wait for them to cool down before eating.

      Thank you grandma, the boys said as each received his cob and run out to go and eat the maize. I wasn’t really the grandmother of all of them, but in this country it is normal practice for young children to call old people grandma and grandpa. Only Tiza and Chichi were my real grandchildren, being the children of two of my daughters. The rest of the boys were from our neighbors, they usually come to play with Tiza.

      You are welcome boys, but be careful, the cobs are hot, I repeated to the boys.

      As I stood at the kitchen door, looking at the boys playing whatever game it was that they were playing at, I thought of my visit to Professor Chalwe’s office that morning when I was told of Tiza’s condition. I was very sad. I was sad at the thought of the dismal future that Tiza would have to face.

      What was I going to do? What were we going to do as a family to help this boy get through school as a normal child, I thought to myself. I couldn’t think of any options for a child with Tiza’s condition to make him progress in his life.

      What is this condition that the boy has which the Professor was trying to explain to me this morning. He had called the condition Dyslexia. I had never heard of the word until now and I had no idea what it meant. The Professor had tried to explain to me what this condition was. He had said it was a learning disability that was causing Tiza to have difficulties in reading and writing. He said nobody really knows what causes dyslexia, but that even though it cannot be cured, a child can learn to read and write.

      Professor’s explanation was too complex for me to understand. I was sick with worry, but I put on a strong face so as not to worry the boy. I decided to tell the boy what the Professor said so that he should know that he had a condition which was making him to be a slow learner. I made the boy believe that there was nothing to his condition that could not be corrected by teachers in school. That is how we left Professor’s office and came back home with Tiza chattering all the way, telling me how nice the man had been to him.

      Tiza, the Professor said you are having problems in learning to read and write because you have dyslexia. You are dyslexic, I said to the boy. Now you parents out there, try telling your nine year old child that he has this condition with a very difficult word to pronounce, let alone trying to explain what it means when you yourself don’t know it.

      Professor is a very nice man, Tiza told me, either not believing what I had just said about him or just totally ignoring what I said.

      Professor kept asking me to read the words he showed me, and when I was not able to read the words, he did not scold me or get annoyed like the teachers at my school. He just asked me something else instead, Tiza said.

      God have mercy on me, I prayed silently. The poor boy had no clue as to how serious his condition was. He did not know that the questions he had been asked were to enable the professor assess how backwards he was in his progress.

      Chapter Two

      That was more than eleven years ago and Tiza was about nine years old when we discovered the real problem that caused his lack of progress in school. That day we went early in the morning to the highest school of learning in the country, The Upland University, to see a Professor in the School of Education, Department

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