Life as we know it can speak in sweet tongues .
The most beautiful of beginnings for me happen in labour wards of Hospitals because I imagine that no matter how brute a midwife can be , there will always be a certain peace at heart.
When they set sight on a five pound and four ounces pink newborn with an endearing face accompanied with cries that sound like a wounded animal as it Pierces it’s way through the ears.
And this infants hurricane for a soul that a mother replaces with a sweet summer breeze while tears run down her face and there is this castle in her chest that crowns her new born love despite all the physical pain it brought her.
Beautiful, isn’t it !
But what really made my skin grow goosebumps
Was the story of the birth and growth of a premature baby.
Born between 26 – 27 weeks which by the way in my country Uganda is defined as an ABORTION.
You see this baby was born the size of a bathroom slipper weighing about 2500 grams.
For it to have a chance at seeing its life years later they had keep it’s body in and incubator and despite all the probabilities of complications like Cerebral Palsy , Delays in development, hearing problems, sight problems to mention but a few.
The beauty of God’s love saw this child gain weight fast on his mother’s milk and soon looked not too different from other babies of the same age. With chubby bracelets where they folded at it’s wrists and ankles.
It would snuffle as a small infant, like it’s nose was blocked and at the sight of it’s mother, it would smile and little craters would form on its cheeks.
Today he has completed 16 years of studies and counting , now what can be more magical than that? , becoming a blueprint for a chance of life no matter the time of birth , what can be more magical than that?
Life has its bitter tongues too you know.
Like for example,
Child fatality just because there is no blood in a hospital.
A pregnant woman dying because the doctors are overwhelmed with work to the extent that they have more important cases to handle compared to the well being of a pregnant woman.( 2 lives are lost in this case)
A mother with a malnourished child that is bloated and maybe short for their age, it’s skin pale, thick, dry and easily bruised not forgetting the rashes and changes in pigmentation and the sight of it’s chest like a tractor drove over it and left the trail of it’s tyres behind.
Here is a story that ripped me at every edge.
This story is of a 22 year old boy in Uganda who had complaint of joint pains.
He was diagnosed with diabetes and immediately he was put under treatment at the hospital.
2 days later, he couldn’t walk or seat upright cause of the pain and he was diagnosed again with Rheumatoid arthritis and Diabetes Mellitus.
Another 2 days later he lost control of his body completely then died a day later.
You see,he needed to reduce the levels of his blood sugars to treat the diabetes but he also needed steroids to treat the Rheumatoid arthritis but unfortunately the steroids increase the level of blood sugar
I was completely stupefied by the complexity of his problem.
Then I imagined what his mother would do. How the ground would collect her tears and form little oceans, where his soul would swim in the ripples of her grief, where he would resurrect in the bitter parts of her life.
All I hoped was that the ground he was buried in was already protecting his mother from the pain of outliving her son.
Now tell me, Is life and Death in the power of the tongue and does mankind define his own fate only if he wills it ?
