The Fragility of Life

I could have lost a daughter in childbirth Saturday.

My daughter almost bled out when she lost a litre of blood in mere seconds after an emergency C-section.

Of course, in a modern hospital, an emergency team of no less than ten people, descended on her in the recovery room, whipped off all sheets and even her nightgown which upset her husband.

He had to be dragged out and told why she was treated like a piece of meat, naked with doors left wide open to the public corridor.

Life comes before propriety.

No one stops to close a door when a life is at stake.

An hour later,

I gazed down at her limp form,

As a tear trickled down her pale face.

She whispered,

“I felt myself slipping away…”

My daughter thought for a moment that she was dying.

Actually, she was dying.

Years ago she would have died.

In the third world, she would have died,

As the result of a series of complications that no one could have foreseen.

Her husband carried her weak body to the washroom.

The nurse held her new son’s weight, as she nursed.

Life and death are not as far apart as I had presumed.

Life is precarious.

Life is fragile.

Life is precious.

I treasure my new grandson.

I treasure my now anemic daughter who will take two months to rebuild her strength and heal her blood levels.

I treasure life. All life as a gift from God.

Ponder: Stop for a moment and remember the women in two thirds of the world who face the threat of death during every delivery.

Prayer: Lord, bless all mothers and expectant mothers. Open our eyes to see and our fingertips to write to help expectant mothers in the third world.