Gone Too Soon

Today I went along with the rest of team to a mosque (not inside but just waited outside) in Kalloor and then to the house of one of my team members. This was not a joyous occasion; far from it. This was possibly the worst reasons we could ever have to go to someone’s house. The death of an infant.

His sister has delivered a baby girl 10 days ago. At the time the doctors at the hospital said that they wanted to keep her for a day just for observations. That became a concern 24 hours later as they came back and said that there was something troubling near the baby’s liver and that they wanted a specialist to look at the baby in 2 days. They took the baby girl to another hospital and the results looked horrifying – it could be cancer and if so it could be fatal! The family was devastated but they kept this news from the mother of the baby.

They wanted to do some blood tests but had to postpone it for a day or too as the poor baby was too weak. Then it was a wait for the results to come in four days later while the family agonized over the helpless little girl whose only sin it seemed was to be born on this undeserving planet. And then it was confirmed – it was cancer and it had already spread throughout the little baby’s system and she was due to succumb to its effects. She was put on a ventilator and this morning the doctors said that it was a maximum of this evening or by tomorrow morning that she would breath her last. It was only the ventilator that was keeping her alive. My team member was devastated and crying. I could only imagine what his sister and brother-in-law must be going through.

Well this afternoon at around 1:45 pm the baby died, another victim that cancer has claimed. 10 days only in our world. So I asked permission to take a company cab, put the rest of the team in it and we went to pay our respects. That’s the least that I can do.