Child with AIDS

This little girl, her name is Merci. She has HIV/AIDS. At the time when the photo was taken in 2004, she was 13 years old. She had just lost her mother to the deadly virus. Her Father passed soon after she was born. In the photograph, she is sitting on my lap. On my left is her grandma who took care of her and on my right is the doctor who's clinic she was practically living in for free because her grandma couldn't afford to take her to an AIDS hospital. Merci died two months after this photo was taken. I mourn the loss of a brilliant little girl who had dreams of becoming a doctor someday.