Intermission

I have been a tad busy and I must admit that the mood to write has deserted me at least for a while. Last Thursday, I was at the other place I work when the news about Allahyarham Nurin came on tv. Then a colleague of mine confided about someone we know who had to examine allahyarham’s body and how disturbed this person was seeing the battered little body. I’m a mother to a little girl. I couldn’t get this vision out of my mind: of a little girl who thought of nothing but to get those fancy hair clips. And the fear she must have been in when she was bundled into the van and taken to god knows where. I’m sure she must have prayed hard for her mum and dad, after all, children always think that parents will forever be at hand to protect them. And how minutes after minutes which turned into hours, and then days, how that poor girl must have suffered. Until to a point when she could no longer fight back as she was starved and had no energy left. Furthermore, she had to endure all those external and internal wounds inflicted upon her. Then so slowly death finally came…and until the end, mum and dad didn’t come to get her.
Why we may ask such brutality should exist? I hope the family will pull through and have faith…I cannot think of anything else to say..Cuma Allah yang maha mengetahui.

On the same day, I came across a client of mine who suffered from brain damage. He had a face of any 12 year olds but his body was life less and must have weighed only as much as a 3 year old child. My regular question to any parent with a child like this is to inquire if the child had been born as such. Mum explained that her son was born normal and healthy but tragedy struck when he was 6 months old. (I thought of little D at that age. She was beginning to sit unsupported and was already able to terlentang and meniarap on her own.) The boy was looked after by a child minder and one day when she came to pick him up, she found him wrapped up in a towel, shaped like ‘bola rugby’ and was not breathing at that time. They rushed him to the hospital but as the brain was starved off oxygen for sometime thus the result. He was abused by his child minder.

I see children in all sorts of ‘shapes’ and ‘forms’. At the beginning I had to train my eyes not to flicker, to reveal any kind of emotions. Nowadays it comes naturally. I don’t talk about these ‘cases’ with any of my colleagues anymore because they are oh so common. But for the life of me, I still cannot fathom how anyone can abuse a child let alone a helpless baby.