The Child I Would Never Get to Kiss Goodnight

in remembrance of my daughter

Photo by cottonbro studio from Pexels - It's the ordinary kisses we never got to exchange, it still brings so much pain

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“Do you have any other kids?”

The nurse asked (as if having a spare child back home would be a consolation prize and a cushion to break my fall to grief) while she tried to examine my nine-month-old growing and pregnant belly for any signs of life. Whispering something to her colleague in a language I don’t seem to understand but know all too well:

A sympathetic look was all it took, to indirectly confirm my worst fears.

My hands flung up over my face in a feeble attempt to stop the pain of the inevitable gushing out, like a waterfall through my eyes.

“Are you in pain?” She asked concerned.

I tried my best to nod no. But how can you speak the unspeakable pain of knowing that the life you carried for nine months has been ripped away and you’ve both been betrayed by your body? The vessel intended to nurture such a delicate life.

My mother had accompanied me; if she hadn’t, I’d be lying on the cold ceramic floor of the state clinic, on that fatefully quiet Sunday afternoon. A floor as cold and grey as my lifeless child I carry still attached to the lifeline that so mercilessly took her from me.