The very first time I lost a very close friend was at the age of 12, and until this moment of writing my entry for the Hive Naija weekly prompt, I always wished Bose had survived everything she went through at such a tender age.
She was a classmate in senior school but older, and we became friends because I hated how much other classmates treated her. I didn't understand much about her illness, but she mentioned a few times that she was suffering from sickle cell.
Bose was brilliant, but her health didn't permit her to study like every other kid in the class, and despite that, she would finish among the top-ranked students every year. We just didn't see her in class because she was sick again, and the news about her departure made me sad.
With time, I realized what sickle cell actually meant and couldn't prevent myself from blaming her parents, because the poor girl only came to the world to suffer for their wrongs.
As if that were not enough, I had another kid who was my student during my days as a teacher, and she was also suffering from that same condition. All her siblings are healthy except her, and unfortunately for the parents, she was the family champion.
Kemi was very intelligent, and she reminded me a lot about Bose. Whenever she is absent from school, I find it really hard to check up on her because of the emotional attachment I developed because of her condition.
Her journey ended just like every other sickle cell patient I have read about; they struggle a lot, and not many of them win the battle in the end.
All of this got me wondering why people allow these things to happen when they can be prevented. Gone are the days of our forefathers when they couldn't even tell what their genotypes were but we live in a world where technology has made a lot of things easy now and yet, many people are obstinate about checking their health compatibility with their lovers.
Some lovers even check, and despite knowing that they aren't compatible, they still go ahead and bear children, only to put some of them in a situation that might end up cutting their lives short. Many times, I have wished that the consequences of two incompatible lovers getting married should only affect them and not the child, because that way, people will take compatibility tests more seriously.
As lovers who have gone pretty deep in their relationship, breaking up after knowing that you guys aren't compatible is the best decision you can make. I know it would hurt, but that will surely pass, unlike going on to have kids, which would make life a living hell for you when you start running around trying to keep them alive.
Imagine doing everything and still losing the child; wouldn't that cause emotional torture as a result of the guilt that would accompany the whole experience?
If we are to be frank, the only way to prevent all of this is to call off the relationship, or better yet, get to know how compatible you are with your partners before things get deep, and it's even better that way since there wouldn't be much connection already.
That health compatibility test is important and shouldn't be joked about to avoid a lot of crises in the future. I have seen many health organizations advocating for this issue, but I have always thought about ways to make it a must for more people.
It would have a great impact if court registry's, churches, mosques, and even the MC of a transitional wedding ceremony demanded a lover compatibility test result as part of the documents required during registration, or whatever name it is called. That way, a lot of people will take it seriously, and we can reduce the great number of children born with sickle cell disease across the world.
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