“I really want to have many friends, but the children do not want to play with me. Sometimes they close the door in my face. And I start to feel a tingling in my chest ...” - says ten-year-old Anna-Maria, pointing with her fingers where it tingles. – “Do you know when it also tingles? When I want crunchy treats and my mom has no money to buy them. In the end, this tingling tires me out, and I start feeling sad.” Here she takes a sad pose, and then continues: “Mom said that I am special, I even call myself in a special way - Marikosha! Ma-ri-ko-sha! But I don't want to be special anymore. I wish I had many friends, many toys, and many sweets! Just like other kids!”

“I feel a tingling in my chest when no one wants to play with me ...”

Anna-Maria Demetrashvili, aka Marikosha, is a ten-year-old girl with disabilities. She lives with her mother in a rented apartment. Marikosha suffers a lot of diseases. According to her mother, Lydia Mgebrishvili, the girl has a whole bunch of ailments. Her left eye is completely damaged. She cannot hear with her left ear. The girl has problems with maxillofacial muscles that prevent her from speaking properly. Besides that, she has curvature of the spine, dwarfism, and psychological problems. At the age of four months, Marikosha underwent a complicated heart operation, and no one even expected that the girl would survive.

Dad left her four years ago. He ran away from responsibility. The little girl and her mother barely manage to exist on those pennies that are called social allowance, and on Marikosha's pension. Parents of special children know firsthand that every day, every step involves overcoming enormous difficulties.

 And if poverty and the lack of a roof over your head are added to all this, it turns out that you inevitably defeat in this unequal struggle.

"Mom says I'm special, but I want to be ordinary!"

Lidia: Together with my daughter, who has a disability, I have been renting a house for four years now. My little fairy has countless diseases. She needs constant supervision. For this reason, I cannot work. We only count on Anna-Maria's pension and social allowance. In addition, we have to contend with two contradictions. The social worker demands that I create proper conditions for the child, otherwise she will be taken away from me. But at the same time, social allowance is paid only when living conditions are completely unbearable. What should I do? If I won’t be able to get the allowance, how can I ensure the proper conditions for my little girl with her pension alone? Who will take my child? I can't live a minute without Marikosha. If you only knew how much we fought, what it cost us to make my baby survive and reach her current development. Every day is a fight for me. I wake up feeling like I'm going to war.

"I want to grow big!"

All the time I have to think about what to feed her, how to distribute miserable help so that she does not starve. She needs to be fed by the hour! In addition to all her illnesses, she has high blood sugar. If she does not eat on time, she becomes sick. I also have to think every day about how to take her to a rehabilitation center, how not to deprive her of the benefits that the state provides her. Because you also need money for transportation! I cried so many times because I did not manage to distribute foodstuffs evenly. How many times have I even been hungry! How many times have I come up with new recipes using only the ingredients that I had! But what if one day we don't have anything? Then... What will happen then?  Catastrophe!

(Her voice trembles and she stops. She tries to gather strength.)

Lidia: Like all children, she wants snacks. She especially loves "crunchies". It used to be very difficult for her to swallow, and I processed all her food in a blender. Now we have moved a little forward with this problem. She tried the "crunchies" several times, and she really liked them. So, she constantly asks for them. Well, that’s what she wants. You can probably imagine what a child feels at this time.  But how am I supposed to explain her that I don’t have money not only for sweets, but even for ordinary food.  Every single day I try to solve this issue, to schedule a diet so that the child is not completely hungry, so that there is no fear that your baby will be taken away from you due to lack of conditions.

"I don't want my plants to droop like me!"

Lidia: I don’t know. With God's help and nerves of steel. In difficult periods of our lives, we survive only thanks to funds. And now we have addressed you for help. Anna Maria urgently needs a series of examinations and surgery. I won't be able to save the required amount on my own. How to save it if there is barely enough money for food? These examinations and surgery are vital to her. Accordingly, they are vital to me too!

Lidia: Marikosha was born with many problems. The very first identified problems were the problems with her heart, then - problems with her lacrimal glands, vision, hearing, spine, limbs, as well as psychological problems. After each visit to the doctor, we learned about some new problem. It really hurts. 

At the age of four months, she underwent aortic plastic surgery. She only had a 3% chance to survive. But this baby with poor health survived the operation. She was then operated on for tear ducts. Until the age of two, her eyes constantly festered, and at least once a week we went to the doctor to have them cleaned. If you only knew how much my baby suffered. Then it turned out that she had a short lingual frenulum. I found out about this too late. 

As I said, after each visit to the doctor and examination, more and more new problems appeared. This went on for eight years.  Because of her health condition - what she suffered and what bothers her now, she must constantly be under control. She needs regular check-ups. Now she needs maxillofacial surgery. This problem of hers is clearly visible: her facial muscles do not work, it is difficult for her to talk, her teeth are underdeveloped. Once, and sometimes twice a year, we undergo a lot of examinations and tests. I'm not talking about the therapeutic and rehabilitation courses that we attend continuously and which the state, actually, provides us for free. But they involve additional costs that are not funded.

“This is the flag of Georgia, so it is in the first place!”

Lidia: It was pretty hard. Although we have a special room there, there is an additional special teacher, but there are countless problems, and many obstacles we face. We study and fight. We devote a lot of time to study, to the best of our ability, of course, we work a lot on development. It is hard for her to learn a large amount of material. Unfortunately, we also have mental retardation for two years. Marikosha's left eye has zero vision and will never recover. She cannot hear with her left ear. She needs to wear a hearing aid, but she doesn't want to.

Lidia: It is true. They laugh at her. I tried to explain to her in simple terms that she was just different from the rest. It seemed to calm her down. But we are still not friends with the hearing aid. I'm scared by the thought that now the most difficult period will begin - teen-age. At this age, even ordinary children find it difficult to accept themselves for who they are. Can you imagine what difficulties await us?

Lidia: My baby has a curvature of the spine. She has a problem with her lower limbs - one leg is somewhat shorter than the other. She must always wear special shoes. Her tendency to dwarfism has become another cause for ridicule. In this regard, we recently decided to take a genetic test. This is the last of her diagnoses, which we learned about at the age of eight. I want to do everything in my power, apply to all the necessary institutions, use all the chances, just to help my child as much as possible. As long as I'm alive, I want her to be with me all the time and have everything she needs. Is there any mother that doesn't want the same?

Lidia: Of course!

Anna-Maria: I love art and math. Mathematics is needed everywhere, you can't live without it. It's a little complicated, but I study a lot to remember everything. I love drawing very much. I will certainly show you my drawings. But first I would like to share my stories with you.

Anna-Maria: No, the stories that I wrote.

“This is Jaco, my favorite parrot. He was constantly jumping while I was drawing him, so he didn’t come out very well in the drawing.”

Anna Maria (smiles embarrassedly and continues): I wrote three stories. One is called "About Me". It talks about my life. The second one is called "Magic Pencil", and the third one - "Anna and Lika".

Anna-Maria: My story is about things that bother me a lot. It’s about how often I feel bad. About not getting better when I drink water. About how I hit against one thing, then another, when I stand up abruptly. And then I get bruises. During the pandemic, no food was allowed at school, so I got sick all the time. The doctor said that I have high blood sugar. We don't have good food, but I need to eat at least something.

Anna-Maria: They also say that children do not play with me. When I go out to play football, I always play alone. I am a goalkeeper, a defender, and a striker. They don't play anything with me. That's why I'm sad all the time and I'm staying at home lately. The story "Anna and Lika" is about the friendship of girls, about the friendship that I dream of.

Anna-Maria: This is my favorite story. It's about an artist who not always can draw what he wants. Does not it happen so that even an artist cannot draw everything? I think, it is impossible to be able to do absolutely everything! Then a magic pencil helps my artist.

Anna-Maria: With the help of a magic pencil, you can draw anything.

Anna-Maria: How did you guess? I really meant myself. I start dreaming about magical things not only when I can't draw something, but also when I can't do other things either.

“I thought a lot and came up with “Shell Cafe””

Anna-Maria: Are you asking me about real things?

Anna-Maria: I want to have a lot of crisps, chips. I want to have a phone so I can call my mom if I get sick at school or if someone offends me. But most of all I want to have many friends to walk, read, play with them. And if I don’t have friends, then at least my Jaco will learn to talk. Jaco is my parrot. I constantly teach him, but he does not remember the words. He is the same as me when I study natural history and it can be difficult for me to remember everything. (She stops briefly, rests, and continues again.)

“It’s hard for Jaco to remember the words, but I still love him very much!” 

Anna-Maria: When I grow up, I want to open a cafe. I'll call it the Shell Cafe. The walls there will be decorated with shells, and all children - special and ordinary - will be given free crispy sweets, pizza. These children, like snails, will lean out of their shells and make friends with each other. I will have a book corner in the cafe. They will read books together. Books will bring together such different shell children even more. They will crunch and crunch... Read and read... They will laugh a lot... A lot... 

“This is not our house, we rent it”

***

Our faithful readers!  Did not the story of this sweet girl and her heroic mother break your heart? Did not it make you willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with them, to help them? The fate of Anna-Maria is in your hands! Don't pass by! Maybe tomorrow it will be too late to do what can be done now! Let's take mother and daughter by the hand and don't let them go. Right now, they need our help. If you want to visit Marikosha personally, this will make her very happy, and she will certainly make friends with you. She will read her stories to you, give you her drawings and tell you about the shell cafe where all the children are happy...

Address of Anna-Maria Demetrashvili is: Tbilisi, Varketili, Javakheti street, First lane, building 4, apartment 47.

 "No one loves me except my mother..."

If you have a heavy heart because of everyday problems or unresolved issues, as a distraction just see our posts on Facebook, or better call any of our beneficiaries, and all your problems will seem unimportant to you, compared with the problems of those to whom you helped in the most difficult moment of their lives.

Our problems are noting if compared... Here are true misfortunes, in front of your eyes! Just thank the Lord for what you have. You are the happiest person in the world! Remember this and help those in need.

Every time you can help someone, just do it and rejoice that God answers someone's prayers through you! We are sure that together we can warm their hearts and give them confidence in the future.

Please don’t forget to repost our story. Let your friends know about the grief of this family! It’s extremely important!

Friends, there is one more request: if you know about the misfortune of a neighbor or friend do a godly deed, drop us an email at:  office-fsp@fsp.ge.

Our Fund’s accounts are:

#GE15TB7194336080100003

#GE42LB0115113036665000

#GE64BG0000000470458000

(purpose: The Demetrashvili family)

You can also transfer money from our website.

It is also possible to transfer money from TBCpay and ExpressPay terminals. Find our Fund under "Charity" section (You can read more about rights and responsibilities of the Fund following the link https://goo.gl/GY2Gus).

We have already helped thousands of disadvantaged people!

Let’s support this family too!  And who knows, maybe someday we ourselves will need help of strangers!  Life is always unpredictable!

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Even if you dial once this special number, it might save someone's life: 0901200270! God bless you!