| Aids leaves Africa's grannies to raise children
Skinny and gap-toothed, her nose smudged with black dust, grandmother Kanotu Mumo sorts charcoal into small pots for sale on the stoop of her slum hut. Mumo is an "Aids granny" in Kibera, Nairobi, one of Africa's biggest slums. Like grandmothers all over Africa, they have been left to fend for orphans after their own children and husbands died. Her hut, stacked with sacks of charcoal, measures 3m by 2,5m and it is too dark inside to see more than a few centimetres, even in the middle of the day. Somehow she shelters four grandchildren, two great grandchildren and the child of a dead relative, who sleep on mattresses and two beds. There is no toilet or running water. According to United Nations figures, at least 12-million children in Africa have lost one or both parents because of Aids. This accounts for 80% of all Aids orphans in the developing world.
Local heroes honored for service to nation
A Marlboro High School graduate, Bloss then began looking into Helems' life and found Jim Helems in Texas. Through the efforts of Bloss and U.S. Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Navarre, Jim Helems received the Purple Heart, five medals and two ribbons his brother earned. In one of his final letters to his parents, the sailor wrote: ''I am sure glad the Lord is with me. There have been some close ones lately.'' He was also recognized at the All Veterans Memorial in Lake Township on Memorial Day of this year. During a continental breakfast at the school Friday morning for the veterans, Han Y. Lee, 51, of Massillon, president of the Korean/American Association of Greater Cleveland, thanked the veterans for all they have done for America. ''I salute you,'' he said.
My dad passes
It was expected, of course. We thought we would lose him in the days after Thanksgiving. But he hung on for several weeks, mostly in a state of half-sleep, awakening for only brief seconds at a time, rarely aware or lucid. He was comfortable right until the end. The immediate cause of death was kidney failure, a relatively painless and peaceful way to go all things considered. I arrived in Eugene Christmas Day and have been with him at the nursing home for most of that time. I know he was aware of my presence and the presence of my mom, two of my brothers and a couple of the grandkids. But he couldn't really communicate other than an occasional hand squeeze. We knew the end was close early Friday. My youngest brother and I stayed with him until about 2 a.m.
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