I have been wondering about the affairs and plight of children who have  lost 
one or both parents. The query brought me to a need to identify such  
children. Help me out if you can please.
 
I am inclined to describe orphaned children as follows:
 
1. Those children who have lost a Father and or Mother.
These children span all ages, from the baby who is nursing and suddenly  
robbed of his or her parent/parents, to the adolescent who is on the verge of  
taking epochal matriculation exams, to the adult who has relied on his or her  
children's grandparents to nurture his or her own children. It runs the gamut.  
Suddenly there is not the person who calls you in from play when darkness  
descends or to call you to prayer. The one who answers the principal's summons  
when you run roughshod of school rules or to receive your teacher's personal  
commendation for your good work. The one you share with your friends when you  
take turns boasting about your pedigrees. The one who recognizes you must see 
a  doctor/dentist when you begin losing your first teeth. The one who brags to 
 other parents about you or solicits counsel for you. The one who takes you  
fishing, hunting, canoeing, tree-climbing, or on your first ferry-ride. The 
one  who cleans your nose in her mouth. The one who defends you when other 
errant  parents want to pin juvenile crimes on you in deference to their own  
knuckleheads. The one who tells you not to climb out the window when he or she  
goes to sleep just so you can join you friends at the Jafandu party.  
Reminiscences. Life support.
 
2. Those children who are abandoned if only temporarily.
These children have at one point in their lives or for all their lives  dealt 
with one or both parents going away for further studies with the hope  of 
reunion (which desire is oft overtaken by other consideration and intervening  
time and events) or exiled by rogue governance, or overseas appointments.
 
Perchance, there is some way to yield such children relief and afford them  a 
semblance of stability and continued value-life. Some of these parents may  
have been the sole breadwinners of the family or may have been married to one 
or  more wives the latter of whom are themselves at the precipice of hunger,  
despair, and possibly suicide.
 
I encourage my friends here to consider these children and elevate the  
conversation to some meaningful secours as only the mighty and  conscientious of 
Ellen might be capable of. I now yield for other  view/suggestion/ideas.
 
Thank you my friends and fambul.
Haruna.  



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