Veronica and Lisette
Veronica and her daughter, Lisette, live together in Bucharest. They care for three teenage girls, adopted by Veronica. At first the girls moved into Veronica’s flat. Later, Health Aid was able to move them to a larger house.
Recently two boys of 1 and 2 were brought to the home - to whom Lisette is ‘Mummy’ and Veronica ‘Grandma’.
Could you introduce yourselves?
Veronica: My name is Veronica, and I’ve been working at Health Aid since 1995 - 27th February. I stayed at the S---- house with Miki [Mihaela – another house parent] - I stayed there 8 months - then I stayed at home for 4 years, and then I moved here to the yard. I’ve been here for about five years.
Lisette: My name is Elena-Lisette, I’ve been working since - I don’t know the year for sure… It’s almost six years, isn’t it?
V: [But I brought the girls home in 1995] - so, unofficially, she has been working since 1995. Unofficially. Because we lived together. I had a two-room flat, and we abolished the bedroom - took our furniture up - put little beds in the bathroom and I lived with her in the living room. …In the mornings we were five in the living room, but it was all right.
How many children do you look after?
V: At the beginning there were the girls – 4 - but one of them died three and a half months after I went to Snagov. Three were left. And last year, in august, I brought home ----, and this year, in august, his brother, ----, came. Now there are five children, three girls and two boys.
How did you come to be a social-parent?
V: I used to work as a seller in a salami shop. It was a swift decision to take the girls. I had talked to Tina [the Head of Health Aid Romania] - a good friend of mine - and she told me she had four nice little girls… I knew they were ill and had no parents, and I decided in five minutes that I would be their mother - at least for 3, 4, 5 months... Now there are almost ten years since then, not 4 or 5 months.
And I said “All right! You need mother - tomorrow I go to my job to talk to them”. Next day I went there and I told to my employer: “You know, starting tomorrow I shan’t be at work!” “Why?” she said. “From tomorrow, I’ll have four children”.
She started to cry, telling me “Don’t leave!” - “I’ll leave! Here at the shop, you might find other girls – girls younger than me. But these girls won’t find a mother every day. So I won’t be here from tomorrow!” Even today I go visiting with my girls to my old employer, in Mogyoros Market. She gets very excited.
L: Everything was little by little with me. I was at home for a while, and not working. Little by little, I got closer to the girls... …I was a little afraid at the beginning – I had questions - I was still too young to understand what it was all about.
How old were you?
L: Well…22. In time I grew very attached to them. We were going out, walking, having fun. It was an experience I hadn’t had before. I began to get used to it - little by little. Later I was hired [by the organization]. At the beginning I was a volunteer.
How did your friends, family, neighbours react when you brought home these HIV+ girls?
V: When I became their mother, an aunt of mine visited and said - “Oh, my niece [will get] AIDS…!” And when she questioned me I used to say to her: “Yes, dear. Why do you care where I go, what I do? Yes, I am there [with them]” - “And you look after these kinds of children?” - “Yes. If you want, you can visit me. If you don’t want to, that’s fine! If you want anything clarified, come to me and ask me”
Two or three times I brought the girls to visit my block of flats, in the Militari area. At my block, I used to be a kind of - children’s mother. [My flat was] the medical centre, the canteen, the courtroom - everything was at my place. So, when I brought the girls, it wasn’t a big problem, because everybody trusted me very much - and they knew that if I brought those children home, I did it because I was sure they would not be a danger for their [children].
And they trusted me very much. When I brought the girls to my place I called a block-meeting. Not with the parents, but with the children. I went to block entrances and I gathered all of them. I brought out the girls and I said: “From now on they would be my girls - like you are - but they will sleep at my place, and they will be somehow closer to me than you are.”
Later I brought them [the local kids] into my flat, and I said to them: “You know, they have AIDS! Don’t say anything to them, otherwise I’ll eat you…!
…Don’t touch them if they cut themselves - if you hurt yourselves or fall down. Don’t touch them, and come to me. Anyway - you always used to come to me when you cut yourselves - keep on doing the same thing. You don’t go to your place, you come to me. Lala will take care of you!” I can tell you - I found much understanding from the children in the block. There were moments when ---- felt bad, and the children brought her to my place in their arms. They used to go to the park, to the swings. Once they lost ---- at the grocery! They came back without her. Two returned of three!
L: I used to go to the swimming pool, or out on the bike - with 20 children. With the girls, and those from the block.
V: My friends told me: “You can visit, but not your children! And I said - “Dear, if you explain to me why only I can come, I’ll come alone.” “Your children are ill and you are healthy!” - “How can you be so sure I am healthy? I’ve been in the hospitals, too - and I’ve have had injections with glass syringes! Why are you so sure? And if I - God Forbid - get the illness not from them, but from the dentist, or the beautician? Then you won’t accept me, either?” - “No, wait…”
And I said: Enough! I’ve chosen my friends, I’ve chosen my relatives, and the door is closed! The door remains open for those who want – for those who don’t, the door remains closed.
When the door was closed, how many were left?
V: My parents, my brother - my niece, who came to me every Saturday and Sunday for years, and grew with my daughters until they were 10 or11 years old. Not only here, but also at my block.
It’s useless to say they swam here in the same pool. Most of my relatives understood, eventually. My friends, fewer of them. They are fewer now. But I do have friends who remained beside me, and new friendships have been made. Those who understood me, understood the children - and understood that these children were mine from now on. I took them to rear them, and to offer them parental love, and warmth, and they should feel it. I didn’t go anywhere without them. Everybody knows. Lala’s daughters - this is how the children call me at home - Ligia among my relatives, and Veronica at work - I’ve had more names.
Everybody knows that anywhere I am, the girls must appear with me. They were frustrated for five years, they had no mother and father, and I said I would catch up everything they missed in these years. Especially when - not knowing how long they would live - the fear of death was even greater, and I said as long as they lived 1, 2, 3 years - I want these children to live like ten years for every one. I am trying as hard as I can, and god wants to offer them ten years for one as well.
What were they like when you first met them?
V: They were bad. I found them at Snagov. They were in a block there, and a girl was taking care of them. They were only recently arrived from the hospital. When I met them, ---- was from here [she shows her forehead] to the heels – everywhere – covered by pus. She had a very bad conjunctivitis - the pus was gushing out of her eyes. When I saw ---- I said, in my mind - “Lord, if you don’t help me, nobody can - I won’t be able to do it by myself”
And I treated her with old-fashioned remedies: wormwood wash, marigolds - I concocted an ointment. I mixed Presidol with Electromicinis [Romanian medicine brands]. I did what I knew how. And I healed her. Her wounds closed up, the pus went away - everything. I managed well and I healed her.
L: When I slept with them, sharing a bed on the first night - I slept near ----. She was so thin, I was afraid to touch her. I said - “Lord, she will tear apart. Right now, she will break.”
V: She was like a skeleton. When my neighbour saw her in the bathroom - I used to wash her - she said: “Ouch! Take your hand from her - you might break her! Can’t you see how thin she is…?” I was giving her a massage in the bathtub, and my neighbour said - “Don’t pull. Do you want to leave her without legs?”
How was their behaviour at that time?
V: They were very bad. Each one would scream as loudly as she could …they were pulling down and destroying everything possible. They were behaving like caged animals, caught in the jungle. Everybody said: “You’re crazy if you think you can make people of these girls!” And I said - “I’ll do it!” And I’ve done it.
L: They were rolling themselves on the floor. ---- was biting herself and hitting her head against the wall; ---- was afraid and she was shivering all the time... They were very bad.
V: They were fighting and treating each other very badly. It was OK for them to burn each other with boiling water, or hurt each other very badly. That was something wonderful for them. If you wanted to see a disaster, a nuclear cataclysm - there was no need of a bomb. Between the three of them, the entire house would be destroyed.
What were the first weeks like?
V: The first weeks - oh… the first weeks when I went to their place… they used to eat without stopping, and would wet themselves. My luck was that I liked them from the first meeting. I them, and they me. When I saw them, I had that feeling - of a mother, who had lost her children and now has them back. That was my feeling. They are my children whom I lost, and I found them again. It was a mutual thing.
I liked them from the beginning, even when they were so ugly, and they liked me… …It helped me forming and educating them. Each human being has his personality, each one is different from the other, and each one has his own imagination for naughty things while he is little. And each one did what they wanted.
---- had a great passion for introducing her had to the wall socket - she had thin fingers, like these, I don’t exaggerate – [Veronica shows the arm of her glasses] - she would put them in the wall socket, amongst the wires. And I said: “ Ouch! Ouch!” - to avoid her getting an electric shock… …Later I taught them to tell me about each other’s deeds. I am sorry - spying was a bad thing - but I had no choice. They were cutting themselves… they were treating each other very badly.
But let me talk about something pleasant. It was the day they called me “Mother”. I put down in a notebook. I did not forget it and I will not forget it. We were at Snagov. A month had passed since I had arrived with them - and back then they called me “Mother Veronica”.
And I was mixing something in a pot, when ----- called me: “Mother Veronica…!” She wanted something. The older girl, who passed away, said to her - “Shut up, girl. Don’t call her Mother Veronica!” ----- said “But how?”. …These remained living memories - I hear them like now.
------ said to her: “Can’t you see she loves us, and she gives us everything to eat” – everything was related to food for them, at that time - “…she loves us, and we sleep with her, she takes us in her arms - let’s call her Mother”.
But ----- was shy, and said - “She might mind?”
----- says - “I don’t think so, girl” – I feel like crying now. So, I was mixing with the spoon in the pot, and I hear timidly - “Mummy…” “Mummy…” But - you know, in singing manner. I wasn’t saying anything, but the tears almost overwhelmed me. I was finding work with the spoon, but I had a pain in my heart.
And it began… I had never heard it in my life, and I’ll never hear it again - that shouting “Mummy”. They began to shout “Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!” We had a neighbour above us - he came rushing downstairs - he thought I had died or something had happened to me! [Laughing heartily, and crying, too, Veronica wipes her tears]. He came quickly, and when he was about to knock on the door - he understood what was happening and turned back. Despite his age, he was smart, too.
With no exaggeration, they called out to me for an hour… they almost got too hoarse to continue – just calling “Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, Mummy…” until they got tired. I went to them, I took all three of them in my arms, and we cried together. They saw me crying, and they cried, too.
That was a happy day because I received a gift, and I felt they gave something - that they freed themselves. I guessed they had a huge desire hidden there, in their hearts. They just choked themselves in this desire, to call somebody ‘Mummy’ - in a true manner, feeling what they said.
I think this was the greatest event for me - leaving apart the big moments of somebody’s life; when my children were born; when I saw myself a bride - I really wanted this.
Did you ever have a crisis of confidence in caring for them?
V: At least from my point of view – everyone has their own perspective - I didn’t see it as a job. I started with the idea that I am a substitute for their mothers. At the very beginning I thought - I would remain some months until a mother would be found, or I’d keep staying, pending my relationship with them - these were my ideas. One month later there wasn’t the same idea. After the second month, I said “It’s clear. I won’t leave any more, I remain to be their mother.”
I couldn’t go anywhere - they were crying after me - when I used to go home I cried after them. Finally I said: “Lord, if you brought me here, so I’ll remain their mother!”
And then the idea came like this. After ----- had passed away, having suffered a lot – I think of her all the time, and I’ll do so till the Judgment - I was talking to the three of them. And ---- said: “If we are your daughters, why don’t you take us home, with you?”
I thought a little, and then I said - “----, you know that you are right? Let me speak with Tina, and Miss Anne [heads of Health Aid Romania and Health Aid UK respectively], to allow you to stay at my place”…
L: …I was out all that day [when they first came home to Veronica’s flat]. When I came in the evening and they saw me, they went like this – [Lisette makes a face as though seeing the devil]. Then they started with the questions.
What kind of questions?
L: Who am I? What am I doing there?
V: Why are you her daughter?
L: I tried to give them an explanation.
V: “But where are you her daughter from…?”
L: I began to distance myself from my mother. When she came to kiss me, I just moved away - because I feared they might get a shock, if she kissed me more. She should give them the love they hadn’t had so far - and I just stood aside.
I used to play with them to please them, but they behaved badly with me. I was a learner... They were very bad with me, very rude and naughty - they did what they wanted, and I just did not know what to do with them. I took them for walks - not to bribe them, to make them closer to me – no. I just offered them what I could. And I do the same now, when they are grown up.
Tell us about taking in the two young boys
V: A--- came first.
L: I received a phone call from Tina, who asked me if I wanted a handsome little boy. I just blocked myself because - my mother and I had decided, we wouldn’t take any more children. Tina said - “Come on, he is such a nice little boy…”
I went and I saw him - when I got there I just fell in love, at the first sight. I said to my mother: “Mum, he is very handsome, he is a jewel.” My mother went, she saw him, too - and we decided to take A----. We decided to take him, but he would be for me. You have the girls, I take the boy.
V: She is the mummy, and I am the grandmother for the boys.
L: After a while we received a phone call.
V: From a nurse we became friends with. She said to us: “Will you take another one?” I said - “But how do you decide who we should take?” “Well, you know, A---’s brother has arrived, too…”
L: [We thought, as brothers, they should be together] - so, we decided to take R-----, as well.
V: I decided I wouldn’t go. Because I was having some problems with my bones. And - to be sincere - I reckoned I had emptied my luggage of love, and of being a mother.
But I see it’s not true. When I saw A--- the first time, I liked him. Especially when he calls me - “Granny…” Oh, he really blackmails me! When he starts - “Granny, Granny…” - and he comes after me. It’s enough - he conquered me!
L: He loves L--- the most, and my mother. The young one, R----, loves me, M----- and G----. Well, A---- loves me, too, but he loves mum more, and L----. And the dog, Lady.
V: He goes - he strokes her, puts his head on the dog, in the evening or in the morning. The same thing with the grey cat. She is his friend - she sleeps at his feet.
Do the girls help out with the little kids?
V: For some years, on Sundays, Lisette and I are the babies - and the girls are our mothers! We have another status on Sundays. The girls make the coffees, omelettes – these days French fries and salads. On Sunday, they treat us. We just relax. They come in the morning and say: “Come on, mummy, have you woken up?”
L: It’s a great help from them. It’s true.
V: Besides this - we did not keep them from getting close to the babies. On the contrary. They are drawn to the boys. They asked us - somehow doubtful – if they could touch them.
Do you have disagreements in the house?
V: There are moments. I guess it’s because of the illness - they begin to feel worse, and they become argumentative. They don’t want to do anything – they say - “I don’t feel like it!”… …There are moments when they fight. They treat each other badly, but they are never rude to me.
Have they experienced prejudice because of their HIV status?
In my block of flats there were two sides. The side who adopted the children, and the side who shouted “AIDS” at them… Those who shouted “AIDS” were beaten by those who defended them.
And I had to come out - the peace maker - with the club. Not to beat those who had shouted, but to stop the others. “Leave them alone, you might kill them - and later their parents will kill me! On the street corner, they’ll shoot me, they’ll hang me!”
My luck was that they were accepted by three quarters, and rejected only by one quarter. But it did not work at school. At school the situation is different. The parents come… not all the parents realise that you can’t catch this illness so easily.
L: They remove their children from school, or the teachers say they will resign.
V: They made a special school [the Health Aid ‘private’ school, comprising of two adapted portacabins] – but it ‘d be better that it didn’t exist… …----- had an intelligence. She was dreaming of becoming a lawyer. Her dreams are somehow failed now…
But I tried to strengthen her - ”You can’t lose your hope, have patience, you don’t know what might happen tomorrow - you are clever, you can catch up any time… You might study five years in one. Not now, have patience – later. You can become a lawyer even when you are 100.” - “Is it possible, mum?” - “Of course it’s possible…”
I give her hope.
How did they feel, when they first encountered people who feared and rejected them?
V: One day, they were playing outside the block - when a boy came and shouted after them, “Hey, the AIDS ones! The ugly ones…!” They came home saying - “Mum, hear what he said...”
I went outside, and said to him - “Why are you shouting at them?” “Because I want to,” he says. “But why? Do they live in your home?” - “No!” - “Do they eat at your table? Does your mother look after them?” - “No!” – “So, what is your problem, then? Did they play in front of your block?” - “No” - “Then go away, if you don’t want to play with them, and you consider them strange - stay at your place, and leave them alone”.
Later I asked them - “When he shouted, did he hit you, too?” No, they said. “Are you obliged to go and sleep at his home?” “No”. I said what occurred to me - “Good! Very good! Then what’s the problem? Avoid him, and don’t pay attention to him.”
L: They saw they couldn’t get answers from mum, and they came and asked me. When the children were shouting at them. They were asking me - “Mum, what is that [AIDS]?” Little by little I began to explain to them - it’s a disease they have. Their mother is ill, too - and she takes pills. It is transmitted through blood, and you must beware - if you have an open wound, if you and another person hit each other, you should not touch the wounds.
Anyway, they were taught in the hospital - they were careful anyway. But they came to ask me - because my mother could not give them any answer.
V: I would freeze up! I used to go very often to the church. I taught them to pray, and I made a comparison - I told them: “You shouldn’t be angry for the disease you have. God chose you. And you are exactly like Jesus Christ. Only that you received this disease, instead of cross, the whipping and crucifixion.
Your crucifixion is that people reject you. And your cross is the disease. You got ill - you rose up. And let us thank God, because if you hadn’t been ill - you wouldn’t have been with me either!”
And they said - “Mum, you’re right!” - “You have me, being ill. If you had been healthy, I wouldn’t have come to you. But because you are ill, I came to help you. This is what I taught them. They have something in their soul - this comfort - Mummy loves us the way we are. Granny and Daddy love us – because my parents are their grandparents - they still have a support, a way out.
When strangers come and say “Go away!” - they think they are God’s messengers. This signal worked well. And it gave them courage.
I [too am chronically] ill – with a bad back and bones. Once, I was lying on the floor, in such pain I was crying. I said to myself - I must fight. And I was quarreling with my bones - are you stronger than I?
And the girls gathered around me. “Mum, what is hurting you?” “You have to fight with your disease,” I told them, “the same with me. I have to fight with my disease, too.”
There are many moments when their ganglions swell up, when they feel bad… I mean there is still that fear… that a kind of undesired bell might chime.
How are you coping with their adolescence?
V: You know the way it is. You learn as you go. It’s difficult - small children have certain needs, older kids come with other needs… here she [Lisette] intervenes. There is some embarrassment - they don’t ask mum too many things. They go to Lisette.
L: All the questions have been to me – they being ashamed to ask my mother. I was closer to their age, and all the questions came - “Mum, why does she kiss…?” I did not know what to say. There were questions I couldn’t answer. They see or hear things around, and come and ask - it’s quite difficult now, being 14, 15 years old...
V: They know they must have protected sex.
L: They know this, we explained to them.
V: I left out, in a prominent place, a book on biology. They took it, as though ‘accidentally’, then later came to her. I left the book there and pretended - I don’t care. I knew they were looking inside it. They came, took it and when they saw what it was about they came to her.
L: They told me they had seen a baby in that book, and they asked me - “If we have a baby, what will we do?” …As far as I could, I tried to give them explanations. There were some questions, I didn’t know what answer to give to them.
V: In order to learn about life, sex – violence, rape, about good and evil - I allowed them watch the news. Not everything. Movies, too - but without seeing too much. From watching, questions arise. Or I start - “Look what that scoundrel did. Couldn’t he discuss with the girl…?”
What are your hopes for the future?
V: First of all I dream that a miracle medicine will be discovered. We realise they have already lived longer than expected.
For some years there was a whirlwind of children dying, and I went through fears - and I said, enough. I was afraid, I was hoping and praying - I was hoping but not believing.
I passed that stage. Now there comes another stage. Here and there I hear that another 15 or 16 year old has passed away. There is this fear, we are still waiting for this medicine. I still don’t have the security of tomorrow. The idea that they will die is still brooding. On foreign TV there was a program saying that these pills are effective for 6 or 7 years. And our children have been taking them for 6 or 7 years – more than - and we are afraid. My heart began to grow smaller. They already began - “I have a pain here, I have a pain here, my legs, my kidney hurts me –“ There are already some problems. “I have a headache…” They might be covered by ganglions from here to here – this might be a good thing. You can say the body is still working. But the fear has started.
This is the health part. But you must think of the other part, too. Soon they might want boyfriends. And how will the boys react to the girls [finding out their status]? And if the boys reject them - what kind of reaction would the girls have? They haven’t had such problems so far, because they‘ve treated boys and girls alike - they’ve just played...
Though all of them dream – you would be blind not to see it – of a Prince Charming, riding in on a horse from somewhere.
Can you tell us about your experience of caring for children who are so sick, so close to death?
V: In 1996, ---- was - we brought her home from the hospital, under signature. Because she was just clinging to life, and she was pleading with us - “Mum, I go home. Mum, I go with you.” And it was terrible. She was afraid of death. She felt overwhelmed in the hospital.
I’ve made 1001 combinations - fruit, teas, vegetables - I made a kind of molasses from them and they drank it, because so mum said. My father went to the countryside, where I am from, and he brought forest fruits - because I’ve heard it had special qualities. For years, nobody ate sugar at home - only this honey, underbrush, and other plants.
So did these plants help to save them?
V: The plants, and Dr. P-----, from Colentina Hospital.
Poor him, when he sees me - his hair goes up. I used to pester him all day - “Shall I give her wheat-germ?” - “If it makes you feel better, and cheers her up, give her…” - “Shall I give her underbrush?” – “Give her” - “I heard this plant is good, can I give it to her…?”
I used to go and ask him - there was a collaboration between the doctor and myself. “Just don’t give up the medicine!” he said. “No, doctor, I won’t!”
And I gave them alternately, these treatments… I went to monasteries. We were praying, we heard sermons at two in the morning - we were spiritually reconciled. Pills came next, then the natural treatments. I got through it with all three of them. M---- had a fall, too. All the time I had the feeling - that if I abandoned them, they would perish.
We want them to live, to enjoy – to live their life. We [Lisette and Veronica] aren’t eternal though. And if we aren’t eternal, they must stand on their own little legs…
…But they still need to be supported. Tina [head of Health Aid Romania] said she would go on with the organisation. I pray for her health, I pray for this organization - we depend upon them.
You know how it is. If the leader is not good, everything will be ruined.
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