Nadia (not her real name) was left paralyzed from the waist down after a car accident: Something that changed her life forever.

She was fresh out of one ordeal when another started.

“I needed around-the-clock care, something that my husband couldn’t provide. So it was decided that I should stay with my family so that there will always be people around me to take care of me,” she said.

But Nadia’s family was far from compassionate, she says.

“They saw me as nothing but a burden,” she said. “They used to refer to me as ‘the cripple’. I would hear them shouting ‘go check on the cripple’ or ‘take food for the cripple’. My children were mistreated, too. Nobody would feed them or brush their hair. For days my children would be wearing the same clothes . . . there was nothing I could do but watch.”

Nadia says her family would take large sums of money from her husband each time he would come to visit, claiming that the money was for Nadia and the children’s care. It wasn’t her father who was the problem — he had passed away. The problem, she said, was her mother.

“Practically nothing from that money was spent on me or my children,” she told Arab News.

“They were going to drive my husband into poverty. Finally I decided that my husband and children should not suffer, so I asked my husband to divorce me and take our children and leave. He cried for both of us and gave me the divorce,” said Nadia.

After the divorce things got worse than ever. Every day there would be fights.

“My family said that they didn’t want me anymore. One afternoon there was another huge argument, and my mother pushed me out in my wheelchair and told me to get lost,” she said.

“I was on the street crying, I called my other family members and told them I have no place to go and that I’m on the street. None of them offered to help. Mama Hajja, from Chad, as I used to lovingly call her, was a maid that used to come and work part time at my family’s home. She was the only one that used to show me and my children compassion. She saw me on the street and felt so sorry tears came to her eyes. She didn’t wait for anything and offered to help me right away. she took me to her home, which is a one-bedroom flat.”

For six months Mama Hajja took round-the-clock care of Nadia, not once making her feel any less than her own daughter.

“The respect and care that my family never gave me I received from Mama Hajja, she never made me feel like a burden. She used to work part time in different houses and when she returned she would be very exhausted, yet she would with a smile take care of me, never complaining. And though she made very little money she was not reluctant to spend her income for my care,” said Nadia.

“I used to remember my husband and children and cry, then how badly my family treated me. Mama Hajja would comfort me and cook my favorite dish to cheer me up. She was very kind to me, and helped me get a job as an operator.”

Nadia says she spent six months with Mama Hajja until she got a job as an operator and then got remarried.

“Mama Hajja made my miserable days bearable with her kindness, and showed me how family should be like.”