Zain The Orphan

• Safiyah Khan, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2011

Many, many years ago, there lived a boy in a far away country.His name was Zain, he had no sisters or brothers. His parents loved him very much.
When he was one year old his dad became very sick. They were very poor and couldn't afford all the medicines.
unfortunately his dad did not get better and passed away. His mother was very sad but she was happy that she still had Zain. When her brothers found out that her husband had died, they came to see her. Zain's mum was very young and she was not going to be able to look after him by herself. Her brothers decided that she should remarry so they took her away leaving Zain with his grand parents. She was extremely sad but she could not fight her brothers.
So the little boy grew up with his grandparents that loved him very much.
Zain grew up thinking that his grand parents were his real mum and dad.
The grandparents did their best to look after him but they were old so they could not play with him or do things as his mum would. So sometimes he would feel lonely.
When he turned eighteen his grandmother became very sick and was about to die. She decided that it was time to tell him the truth about his real parents.Zain became very sad, he cried for days and then he became angry. He wanted to know why they didn't tell him earlier. His grandparents told him that they didn't want to make him sad. For a while he was confused about what he should do.
After the death of his grandmother, Zain felt more lonely so he decided to look for his mum. He only knew her first name and no one in his family would help him because they didn't know where she was.He looked and looked for her but she was nowhere to be found. He became more sad every day.
After seeing his grand son suffering, the grand father decided to send Zain to Australia to study. He thought the change might help him forget. So Zain came to Australia. Life was very difficult here for him, he had to study and work at the same time so he could pay for his studies.
After a while he started to get use to the life in Australia and made new friends and he stopped being so sad. He later got married and had children of his own. He would often talk to them about his mum and how they should always be grateful for having both parents to love them because in the world there are many children that do not have this chance.