They say lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice. I am angry at God, how could he do this to me, why?
‘I am leaving. I can’t continue like this, I have put my life on hold for the past five years for her. I am tired’, said my wife as tears began to pour down from her eyes. I looked at her with mixed feelings.
Should I say I am disappointed? Definitely yes, because how could a mother say this about her daughter? She was quitting. I thought mothers were meant to be the most compassionate of both parents. Here she was, standing in the living room with her luggage, preparing to leave her child and our marriage.
I looked around our living room; there used to be laughter, joy, and happiness here. All I could get now was silence, a very loud silence.
‘Okay’, I said to my wife. Was she asking for my permission to leave, or did she want me to beg her to stay? She looked at me just to be sure, and I nodded. The emptiness in her eyes was deeper than a well. She wasn’t the woman I fell in love with. My helpmeet has rendered me helpless. No, she wasn’t. I stood up from the double-seater I was sitting on, and I moved to the window to stare at nothing. The bang of the door jolted me as I came out of my thinking of nothing. She had even dropped her ring.
I was hurt; my heart was hurting, really hurting. How do you beg someone to come out of their resolve? How do you reassure your lover that you would give her all the love you promised the first time you met? How do you reinforce the faith of a believer who had prayed for healing for several years but got none and decides to stop praying? Would you say his faith was little? How do you help a mother who has dedicated all her life to a sick child, hoping she would get healed, but nothing showed forth? Would you say she’s a quitter for not being strong and hopeful? Would you say she is less of a mother? Or would you tell her, “Well done, at least for trying for a while”?
They passed a pipe into her nose this time; she couldn’t breathe well. There were pipes inside her stomach to pass in food and pass out feces.
She was asleep most of the time. This wasn’t her first breakdown, nor was this her second. She had visited the hospital most of her life, ever since she was born.
‘Daddy, water’, she said hoarsely. I turned quickly to hear my daughter speak. This was her first word for the past three months since we had been in the hospital. I gave her a small amount of water and she drank slowly. I could see tears gathering in her eyes, I helped her wipe them. ‘Baby, are you fine? You are crying’, I inquired. She shook her head slowly. It was my cue to know she was too tired to talk.
