sorrow

I was awakened at 4:30 this morning by my phone buzzing. It was our neighbor asking for transport to the maternity ward at the local hospital for his "sick" wife.

Their baby girl was born breech shortly before I arrived at the compound (a mere 300 metres away). After some minutes, the middle-aged couple and two neighborhood grandmothers emerged from the small house and entered the vehicle with a lifeless bundle. Together we proceeded to the hospital.

The nurse at the maternity ward sent us to the OPD (Out Patient Department), where the nurse told the couple to go home and wait until morning, then go to another clinic in town.

I wanted to cry and offer some comfort to their pain, but I could find no way to communicate my grief and solidarity. I left them at their doorstep just as dawn was breaking in the eastern sky.

I drove home, quietly unlocked the back door, and nabbed two more hours of fitful rest on the sofa before starting my day for the second time...