Silent together

I met her eight years ago. She had traveled with the rest of the
family to Karachi, and as a young bright eyed medical student, I was
assigned to her son, or may be it was the other way around. He was
pretty spunky kid, but very polite, a result of small town
upbringing. I followed that patient enthusiastically, which meant
that I saw him several times a day, checked his labs, repeatedly
pricked his bruised skin to get more blood for labs, and read aloud my
progress note in the morning rounds, to a team of doctors and
students.

The team pondered over the likely causes for his condition as he
continued his periodic descent into unconsciousness, each time he
emerged from it, he seemed less aware of his surroundings, his body
jerked oddly as it obeyed a rapidly disorganizing brain. We stood
around his bed, rejecting one diagnosis after another, until the most
brilliant amongst us came up with the diagnosis that seemed to explain
all the clinical findings. I volunteered to read up on the rare
illness and teach my fellow students. The team moved on, I spent that
afternoon preparing for that presentation.

In the evening, the senior doctor returned to the child's bedside,
brain scan had confirmed his earlier diagnosis. This child was going
to die from the rare illness affecting his brain. The doctor said he
was sorry, and stood there for a few minutes. He couldn't conceal his
awkwardness, so he excused himself and left us.

The mother and I looked at the bed in a still silence, neither of us
could look at his face, so both of us stared at the sheet that covered
the nine year old up to his chest. In that moment, for the first time,
I noticed that the white starched sheet didn't have any wrinkles, it's
edges were still neatly tucked into the sides of the hospital bed. I
felt myself choking up, I couldn't look up, I couldn't see her eyes, I
couldn't let her see mine.

We walked out of that oppressive ward, and sat down on the grass next
to each other. I in my freshly laundered white coat, she in her
crumpled chaddar. I no longer remember her name, nor the face, just
the silhouette of a woman wrapped in chaddar, sitting next to me on
the grass. It was just past sunset, I can't remember any colors, her
image is etched in my mind in shades of gray.

She asked me if he got this illness because she didn't get him the
measles shot. I don't remember what I said, there were no more words
after that, we sat in perfect silence. I didn't know what to say. What
does one say to a mother who’ll watch her only son die soon? I tried
to think. I wasn't a mother, and I wasn't God, I couldn't begin to
fathom her sorrow, and I couldn't make it go away.

So I gave up trying , and just sat next to her until it became so dark
that I couldn't see her anymore.