For me, it came unexpectedly. I didn’t have anyone in my paternal or maternal family had been diagnosed with such a disease.

Back then I was at a loss and all I could think of was my daughter getting better.

She needed a miracle – and desperately.

In 2015, my once bubbly, talkative and cheerful six-year old daughter Sarah suddenly fell ill with TB meningitis.

Sarah was hospitalised for three months at Angau Memorial Hospital in Lae, Morobe Province. It was the most traumatic year of my life. Depressing, stressful, challenging.

My faith in God was tested beyond heavenly boundaries.

I struggled to keep my hopes up and searched to find the courage and strength to keep my little gem happy.

I don’t know how or why my Sarah caught the disease, yet I feel maybe I am to blame for her condition.

It breaks me because I can’t bear to see her the way she is now.

By the awesome grace of God, I have come to accept her for who she is despite the fact I miss her normal bubbly, cheery self, her chats, her grumbles, her laughter and her voice.

I am learning to build and help her heal.

US ambassador Ebert-Gray with Evah Kuamin, who won the Award for Essays & journalism in the 2017  Crocodile Prize 

If you were to see my Sarah today, it would be hard for you to believe that I almost lost her five years ago. Sarah had hit a low of nine kilos and was all skin and bone.

She was placed on a nasogastric feeding tube - a medical process involving the insertion of a plastic tube down the throat and into the stomach for feeding.

Since then Sarah has lost all her ability to sit walk, talk and be normal.

I am grateful to God for each day that I live to be with Sarah. I am happy that I have her and, regardless of how she is now, I choose to be happy.

I have done all I can for her and I will still continue to do more at the least be who I am to her – a mother.

This year, 2020, Sarah turned 12 and in the coming year she will be a teenager.

‘My Love –Natugu’ is the story of my journey as a mother throughout the years of my daughter’s suffering and healing.

It gives words of encouragement and hope to people who share similar struggles to mine.

It is about being strong, about beating the odds, about persisting and hoping and maintaining faith.

May you always view life with love, courage and hope.

Link here to an earlier story about Evah and Sarah