The Scar

It had been a great afternoon lunch with my friends to celebrate my promotion at work.
Isn’t that Mrs. Lee at the common corridor? She seemed to be waiting for me.

I remember the muffled sounds of argument coming from her unit some nights before and I wonder if she wants to confide her problems in me.

“Have you had lunch, Mrs.Ong? She held my hands gently. I have some news for you.”
There have been some accidents….. baby is scalded…. In hospital.”
I can’t make sense of what she is saying as I picked up certain terrifying words. Accident? my baby of nine months?

I can’t understand how I could still be standing there, looking at Mrs. Lee stupidly.

I finally made sense of what she was saying and hopped into a taxi that took me to the hospital where my baby was warded.

I could not get to see her until later. Hubby was looking miserable as he tried to embrace me.

How and what has happened? I wish I had not gone for that lunch to celebrate what success?

Days followed with afternoon and evening at the hospital, and tears flowed incessantly before we could finally fall exhausted after each visit. Even parents are not allowed to stay behind in the ward as it is a burnt ward and contacts were kept to the minimum to prevent any infection.

Baby was crying miserably but what could I do? We just continue to live from lunch to dinner visitations.

She survived that horrible accident with only a big ugly scar on the back of her bottom. Praise God it was not the face that had been scarred.

It was never to be forgotten, that terrible accident that scarred my baby.
Had it been so many years before? The poor child is now a grown up adult. The only thing that reminded me of her accident is the scar that is hidden from view but not from my memory. Thank and praise God for sparing us of worse consequences that would mar and destroy her future.