A third chance?

When Liza first sought my help to get her a shelter home for her and her young kids, and I told her that it would be easier to get a home for HIV+ ladies in KL, Liza clearly mentioned that she’d prefer to stay in KL and away from Perak. She said she’d feel stressed if she continued staying in Perak since there are so many kaypoh relatives of hers here in Perak.

So I arranged a place for her in Rumah Solehah. But the day she was discharged from the hospital after giving birth to So’od, she was still too weak to travel all the way to KL. So after discussing with her, and after getting permission from Kak Ana who runs the home where I had earlier sent my little Cek Mek last year, I sent Liza and So’od straight to Kak Ana’s place first. The plan was to send Liza and her kids to KL maybe a week later, after she’s a bit better.

However, the next time I called to find out when she’d be ready to be sent to KL (I needed ample notice to make all the necessary arrangements), Liza had changed her mind. After Kak Ana offered to let Liza stay at the home longer, and after Liza discussed the matter with her sister, Liza decided to stay on at Kak Ana’s place until after her confinement. So I cancelled the place at Rumah Solehah for her.

Tomorrow I will be heading her way as I need to attend a meeting in the same town with a few people from the Malaysian Aids Foundation who’d coming over to Pertubuhan Komuniti Intan, another NGO dealing with HIV/AIDS. So I shall take the opportunity to go over to Kak Ana’s place to get some documents from Liza and also to hand over some other stuff to Liza. I had earlier on kept the stuff with me because according to the earlier plan, I’d be fetching Liza later to send her over to KL.

I had already informed Liza that I’d be coming this Saturday. But this morning I decided to call Kak Ana, just in case Liza had not told her that I’d be coming tomorrow. True enough, when I called Kak Ana this morning, she wasn’t aware that I would be coming. Kak Ana would be coming to Ipoh tomorrow while I’m heading to her place. But anyway, she said she’d get the photocopies of the documents ready for me.

Anyway, remember in my previous posting I mentioned about Liza’s last text message saying that she felt guilty when she found out that her husband too had been infected? Well, today Kak Ana told me that she heard Liza may want to reconcile with her husband.

Hmmm… again? You see, Liza had earlier filed her divorce papers when she was staying in KL before she got pregnant with her 2nd child. But her hubby managed to coax her, telling her he promised he’d change. So Liza retracted her divorce papers and gave him a second chance. She got back together with her husband, and in the process, got pregnant as well. But her husband did not change. He remained his old lazy, hot-tempered self. Liza gave up and left him again, bringing along her son. She was pregnant then and so did not file for divorce. She was adamant that she’d make the necessary arrangements to file for divorce after her confinement when she intends to move back to KL.

I believe what Kak Ana heard (that Liza wanted to reconcile with her husband) was true. Liza herself, in her text message to me, although she did not mention anything about getting back together with her husband, said that she managed to call her husband, who told her that he too had been infected, making Liza feel guilty, because it was Liza that he got it from.

Hmmm… has he really changed and want to take over responsibility as a husband and a father? Or was he purposely making Liza feel guilty so that she’d go back to him? And after being so sure about ending the marriage before this, does Liza really want to get back together with her husband? Mind you, this will not be a second chance she’s giving him, but a third chance!

I don’t know her husband personally, in fact I have never met him before, so I don’t really know what kind of a person he is. It’s Liza’s life, so she’s got to decide for herself. But I do hope she’d consider all things before coming up with a decision. Hopefully her decision will not be based solely on her feeling of guilt for passing the virus to her husband. As I mentioned before, her husband knew she had HIV, and he knew the risk. It wasn’t Liza’s fault alone that they weren’t practising safe sex.

Will they or will they not get back together? Guess we’ll just have to wait and see…