A Child at the End of this thing called Life

Whenever I encounter patients with illnesses, I always feel sorry for them because nobody wanted to be sick. Life is something to be cherished and felt with others and not alone in a bed. That is why, it is with a heavy heart that I enter the wards in the hospital. However, it's even more heartbreaking if the one I'm entering is the pediatrics ward or the pediatric ICU. I mean they're so young -still kids. They have so many things to see, so many new things to learn. They're supposed to grow old - not die when they haven't experienced life yet. It seems so unfair but there's no one to blame really.

I remember a female classmate who had two younger brothers. The youngest was diagnosed with leukemia at stage III. At a very young age, he died of cancer. The parents felt so depressed and incompetent being physicians and not being able to cure their child. It's not their fault, but if there's no one to blame, you can only blame yourself. The other members of the family felt lost and shocked too. Frankly, we were all shocked. He was just 6 years old.

Cancer is such a bad friend. It is not content in devouring you slowly but it also aims to be passed on to your children. To counter it, you have to have a good constitution and outlook in life. When the very old become devastated, how more would it be in the very young?

In my duty days at the Cancer Institute, I always found myself wondering what kind of persons these children will be when they grow up? Will they have extra strength because of the burden they have carried or will they be weak because of the unwanted dependence they have on their significant others? What about their family? Their siblings if there are any? How do they grow up having all the attention on the sickly child in the house?

This touching video inspired me to resurrect these feelings and thoughts I had inside my mind that remained dormant for a long time. Very simple but heart-wrenching.

~ Babble by brownbeat