After six years, Vision went to school. The teachers soon saw what a clever leaner Vision was. After two years, Samuel died in a terrible accident. He was a popular guy, everybody loved him. He was approachable, someone who was easy to talk to. Joyce was so heartbroken she almost committed suicide. Samuel, her bright stars’ untimely death was hard on her. Her life was a mess and things spiralled out of control.

Precious became a mother; she got pregnant at an early age, making her contribution to the ongoing teenage-pregnancy. She gave birth to a healthy boy called Max.

Precious wanted people in the community to not perceive her as a bad girl. She was a very good child who made some bad decisions. She once gave a presentation about problems that affect their society, she always wanted to help the society. She mentioned poverty as a main cause of unemployment. The presentation was superb, she made the whole community to fight against all those society challenges, and there was an idea to fight poverty by creating more jobs. She changed people’s minds and made them believe in UBUNTU.

Proverb also had a good reputation in the community and after a while he went to his maternal grandparents to stay with them for a while. Proverb completed his secondary studies with flying colours hoping that one day he will be a professor. He went to University of Limpopo in Polokwane. He was the second person who went to university in his family, after the late Samuel.

Martin was good at Mathematics although he didn’t succeed in other subjects – he was trying but not impressive. He wanted to be a lawyer; he was a good liar and was very convincing. He would make you believe a wrong statement even when you know the truth. He loved controlling people as if he owned them and he loved dancing like a mad man and watching action movies.

Vision was the cleverest of them all, even Precious saluted him. He loved helping people because he knew that with the help of people you can achieve many things in life. He liked to play wrestling with Max at all the times, even though Max never won – he was always surrending. But they all lived a good life, they were just playing as normal kids do. He loved listening to music and he ended up composing his own songs. He loved writing so much that he ended up writing a story, but it didn’t get published. He was just trying to change his life for the better.

Precious had another child, she gave birth to a cute baby girl and she was named Princess.

What bothered John and Joyce was that no one came to ask for their daughter’s hand in marriage. Both her children were now out of wedlock. She finally fell in love with an Indian guy, Muzamill, who promised to marry Precious. John and Joyce were happy.

Muzamill and Precious got married and everybody was happy, even Muzamill’s parents were there. They loved Precious, they even invited her to India but they didn’t want her children to come, so she refused. Muzamill and Precious thought that it was time for them to have a baby. Precious got pregnant. John and Joyce were so happy because they didn’t want Precious to have children but no father to support them.

Muzamill turned Precious and her parents’ happiness into sadness and he broke their hearts.

He left without saying goodbye. It could’ve been that he was not ready to take responsibility of all three children, or that the pressure just became too much. No one ever knew. They all searched for him everywhere but they didn’t find him. Shame, poor Precious, the community said. Why did Muzamill leave a beautiful girl like Kruti?

Eventually Precious gave up looking for him, she accepted that he’d come back if he belonged to her. Joyce and John took care of Precious’ children Max, Princess and Kruti. Precious’s wounds started to heal. After Proverb completed his tertiary studies he immediately got a proper job. Precious got a job also, and she could finally support her family. They liked to get together during weekends and share their background with their children.

***

Tell us: Do you and your family overcome struggles together?

The End