Mother's Love

What strikes me the most here in Paediatric posting is how strongly I was shown that a mother's love is the fiercest of all. Whether it's the new mother with the firstborn or the middle-age ones with lots of children. There's no compare of how strong their love of their child is.

Restrain your judgement to the mother who passed down her HIV blood to the baby boy who is still sick with various complications of the retrovirus disease infection. He's been admitted here for 7 months already. But when you look at how the parents never leave the baby's side, at how the mother only look at the baby all the time, even sleep with the baby in the small crib - you know. You know that her love is real.

You may have already encountered the real fussy and the dreaded overly-anxious mothers who don't trust doctors with their babies. The shouts, the complaints, and the mere look of distrust as they think we have no other work to do but to make their babies suffer for a number of accusations. But see properly and you can see that in between lines of worry or in the glazing eyes of fury they do what they do is because they are terrified for their child's safety. That is love in primal instinct all mothers of every creature has. The fierce love.

No matter how sick the child can be, or how hopeless the prognosis is - no mother I see abandon their love of their child. You see it in the children's silent tears. You heard it in their cry asking for their mother. You witness it from the shine in their eyes when they see their mother. You know it is true. That's love.


You see it more often in those moments. But you see it too in the moments of despair. When the mother was not there when the child is scared and lonely. When the child is very ill and neither the mother nor the doctor can do anything at all to make it go away instantly. Love is equally abundant both in sickness and in health. Love is there before the child is even born and love will always be around when the child leaves the world earlier than their parents.

And in lights of recent tragedy, I give my heartfelt love to the ones we all missed. To every children I loathe to take care of, I give you my love all the same and assurance that you are all loved. That whether it is shown, or seemingly abandoned, you are loved just by being born. To the ones who prompted me to write this post - the Indian and Malay mothers that took care of their bedside Chinese girl when the girl's mother is not around, I was deeply moved. A mother's love has no racial or religious boundaries. Thank you for showing me your love.

And last but definitely not least,
I love you too, Mama.