AS TOLD TO BC PIRES
My name is Karlene Thomas and I am the acting head nurse co-ordinator of the Blood Bank at Port of Spain General Hospital.
I now live at Curepe, but I’m originally from Sangre Grande, and that’s where I’m say I’m from today. Although I’ve been living at Curepe for 15 years. Definitely Grande!
Grande girl days was wonderful. Is not like now. You had freedom to roam the fields, climb trees, pick fruits. You had freedom in your neighbourhood.
The community spirit was there that you don’t see now.
I come from a medium-sized family, because my mom have seven children and I am the baby in the gang.
However, I grew up with my grandmother because my mother was not in the country.
My mom was a single parent. She left Trinidad in order to support us.
But our community consisted of almost 30 children, and we were like family. So I was in a medium-sized family, but yet, for all, also a large family.
I never knew a male figure in growing up. It was always just the women.
But I can’t complain, because we were always happy.
My grandmother ensured there was always enough to eat. We did gardening. We plant. We mind pigs, we mind chicken, we mind duck. So our food was homegrown.
Where I live in Curepe, we don’t have space to grow food. It makes a difference.
Growing our own food gave us discipline and responsibility. You were out of your bed by six because, before you leave to go to school, you had to wet the plants. Clean the pens for the pigs, chickens, ducks and rabbits.
And, with my grandmother, you could not be late for school!
My children are Kurel, Kyle, Curlieann, Kerrian, Isaiah, Abiel.
When Abiel was 12, I had Adrien and then my baby, Rayann. I don’t even consider her adopted. She’s eight.
I was definitely raised Catholic. No abortions and things like that.
But I love children. I got married pretty early, 17 turning 18, and I was a stay-at-home mom and wife.
I’ve never stopped believing in God.
I would take suffering from my children if I could. If BC Pires asks how God could let his children suffer, I say we choose what we want.
[caption id="attachment_1009075" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Karlene Thomas says "When you give blood you actually save three lives. One pint of blood helps to save three lives because we use the blood, the platelets and the plasma." - Mark Lyndersay[/caption]
No, BC Pires, we don’t choose for five-year-old children to get cancer.
My son Isaiah is a cancer survivor. He was diagnosed when he was eight, the first child in the Caribbean to get Burkitt lymphoma. And he’s going on 33 now.
It was a challenge, because I was training to become a nurse: having to look after him and my other children while studying was tough. But it didn’t shake my faith. It strengthened it. Because my support was prayer.
My primary school was Sangre Grande Government on the Oropouche Road. We walked home for lunch, it was so close.
Then North Eastern College, where I got my subjects. That was more of a distance, but yet, for all, we walked.
The
