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Some wise words from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: As to going home, shame opposed the best motions that offered to my thoughts; and it immediately occurred to me how I should be laughed at among the neighbours, and should be ashamed to see, not my father and mother only, but even everybody else; from whence I have since often observed how incongruous and irrational the common temper of mankind is, especially of youth, to that reason which ought to guide them in such cases, viz., that they are not ashamed to sin, and yet are ashamed to repent; nor ashamed of the action for which they ought justly to be esteemed fools, but are ashamed of the returning, which only can make them be esteemed wise men. We feel shameful apologizing. We do not feel shameful doing the wrong thing. Something to think about.

Here's a review of Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It was first published in the AMSUN gazette.

We may not think much of how we listen to the Word of God. However, there's much that goes into learning and getting blessed by a sharing. Our hearts' posture is one such thing. It is said of the Bereans, that they received the Word of God with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were true. Our listening needs to be more intentional. We should listen with the expectation that the Word of God will bless us, and that God will speak into the circumstances of our lives. We should let the Word teach us, reprove us, correct us, and train us in righteousness, that we may be complete, and equipped for every good work. When the Word of God comes, it addresses areas of struggle in our lives. When we were afflicted because of our sins, God sent his Word and delivered us. Psalm 107:17-20 ESV [17] Some were fools through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities suffered affliction; [18] they loathed any kind of food, and they drew near to the gates of death. [19] Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. [20] He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction. And now, ought we not to thank Him for his steadfast love, and His wondrous works to the children of man? (Verse 21) We also need to listen to our Pastors with patience, and with some grace. They may not be exactly good at delivery, or their style may not be to our liking, yet we should listen with love, not despising, but testing everything, and holding fast to what is good. There's also a need for consecration, that is holy living, if we are to properly hear the Word of God. It is easy to listen and learn from a sharing if we are disciplined in studying the Scriptures ourselves. That way we can at least not be like the seeds that fell by the pathway. What of prayer? Paul asked that he be helped in prayer, so that the Word of God will have free course. We need to pray for insight and understanding. We need to pray that we get transformed as we listen to God's Word. And we need to pray for our Pastors so that God guides them, that they share from inspiration and as the Holy Spirit guides and instructs them. And when all is said and done, the Word of God is not just to be fancied, but obeyed. We know that we love the Lord, when we obey His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome. Be doers of the Word, not only hearers, deceiving yourselves. Blessed is he who hears these things and does them. The Word is also to be believed. Good news comes to us all, but it is of benefit only as it is united by faith with those who listen (Hebrews 4:2) God's word is to be loved, but is is also to be believed and obeyed. A beautiful article from Crossway. Listening well is a spiritual discipline. We should go to church with an expectation that we will meet with God in the preaching of his word. All of us on occasion arrive tired and distracted, and when we are in that frame of mind, there is every chance the sermon will bounce off us. But if we are hungry, expectant, and ready to engage with God, then our experience will be much more positive. So we need to listen actively, not passively. It is easy to listen to a sermon without really hearing it. But it is better for us, and more encouraging for our pastor, if we engage carefully with the Scripture passage being taught and go away reflecting on both the passage and the sermon. I hope the sharing at Church today will be a blessing to you.

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 ESV [23] Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. [24] He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. The words of the Apostle are chosen with the utmost care. He does not pray that they may be kept without fault, but without blame. Many blameless things are faulty, and many faulty things are blameless. A work done from purest love and to the utmost capacity may be full of faults but entirely free from blame. A picture is often hung in the home that has a value apart altogether from the judgement of the Academy. Faultless? Not by a long way. But a pure soul put its best into it, and soul is more than precision. Faultless? Nay, for though the sanctification be entire, it is not final. The glorification is not yet. Until it comes the spirit will be beset with limitations and infirmities, the soul will be hampered in its aspirations, and the body will continue to be an imperfect instrument preventing with its weakness the will of the spirit. Not faultless, but blameless. Without reproach, without condemnation, and in all things acceptable before God!

Religious fiction also makes use of sex to interest the reading public, the paper-thin excuse being that if romance and religion are woven into a story, the average person who would not read a purely religious book will read the story and thus be exposed to the gospel. Leaving aside the fact that most modern religious novelists are home talent amateurs, scarcely one of whom is capable of writing a single line of even fair literature, the whole concept behind the religio-romantic novel is unsound. The libidinous impulses and the sweet, deep movings of the Holy Spirit are diametrically opposed to each other. The notion that Eros can be made to serve as an assistant of the Lord of glory is outrageous. The “Christian” film that seeks to draw customers by picturing amorous love scenes in its advertising is completely false to the religion of Christ. Only the spiritually blind will be taken in by it. Having read Alan Jacobs The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, I have since been an advocate of read what you love. Maybe we shouldn't. I hope I get to tackle this in a later post. I have since been trying to post more consistently on my substack. You can find the posts here: Please make sure to subscribe so that you never miss any new ones. Thank you.

Over my three years of medical school, I have had the opportunity to make new friends, and so many acquaintances. In my third year, one of them moved from being just an acquaintance to being my roommate. We, therefore, not only got to share classes, but also to share life, in some way. When you reside with someone, and have to look at their faces when you go to bed and when you rise from it, isn’t that sharing life? I can only guess what marriage is like, and shudder! To some point, our academic and career goals seemed to converge so much that it almost seemed like we would be the greatest duo in medical school, yet not quite so. After a few months, I have had to step back and ask myself what it was that I really wanted from life. Both Njoroge and I certainly hoped to be great doctors in the few years to come, we hoped to be successful and turn back the tide of privation in our lives, but soon it has become quite apparent that we won’t take the same path to attain our goals. Our destinations bear some semblance to each other, but our roads diverge, and a glaring fork-road it certainly is. Medical school is a sort of agglomeration of students who have crafted legacies for themselves. It’s a community of diversely skilled and different comrades who, clearly, by diligence and unwavering commitment, have been able to make a name for themselves in whatever they set out to do. When we see all these flowers in their lives, we want to blossom in the same exact way. So many of us have taken upon ourselves pursuits that weren’t ours for taking. Down the road, our life has never been so unfulfilling and burdensome. We cannot rejoice when we are living a life that is not our own. As much as we all want to be successful, our paths up that ladder are so different. I have had to understand that just because someone else is doing spectacularly well in Forex doesn’t necessarily mean that I will be successful if I try it out myself. The same is true for online marketing or whatever it is called. I have intentionally avoided mentioning anything that would have a medical connotation to it, as I have lately been made to understand that I never know for certain which exact field I may have to venture in in future. Neither do I look down upon those who trade Forex or do online marketing. Some of them are actually driving by now, while I am still trying to make my way in the world. Did I want to be like them? Yes. Right now, do I want to be like them? Goodness no! We do give honor to whom honor is due, but we do not have to follow the path they took just so that we can get honored as well. Our lives are beautiful when we take the pen and write our own stories. No story is beautiful if it's not original, if anything, it’s intolerable. Those who have done well, amazingly well, are there to guide us in our path towards our greatness, not their greatness. They can only teach us the indispensable values and kind of deportment that is requisite for success in any frontier, and that most often goes back to diligence and sacrifice. I am sure there is no one in the world, who has done amazingly well, by his own efforts and not on the basis of wealth bequeathed to him by family and the like, who has not had to pay the price of diligence and sacrifice. There is a price to pay for anything we wish or hope to have, sometimes, it even is our souls. When we don’t live as well as we should, when we don’t give our best, we pay a price for that. We all have heard that if we think education is expensive, we try ignorance. There is a price we pay for ignorance. There is a price we pay for our indolence and our unwillingness to plod and strive. And there is a price we pay when we take other men’s strivings on ourselves. I have always wanted to be a neurosurgeon someday. But even with the sublimity the field is known for, it’s all for nought if that will not allow me to serve my purpose to the world. The question each day has now become, “what am I here for?” If that isn’t what gets me out of bed in the morning or keeps me from bed at night, then is it really what I am here for? When I finally become a neurosurgeon, would I be of use to the world in the best way I could ever be? I wonder? Sometimes,  the path less traveled on  in Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken, becomes the only worthy choice we can make. If getting rich, if becoming the greatest neurosurgeon in the world can keep me from fulfilling my purpose, is it worth it? But then, what really is my purpose? What road am I called to take? Day by day, I am drawn to think of the first devotional teaching in New City Catechism  by Collin Hansen and Timothy Keller. “What is our only hope in life and death? That we are not our own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death, to God and to our Savior Jesus Christ.” In the end, whatever happens with my life, my prayer is that God will be glorified. I may not be as successful as I would want to be, as my family would expect me to, but whoever I will become in the years to come, may God be glorified. Whatever I will do, whatever my hands will excel at, whatever I will fail in, may God be glorified. Because I belong soul and body, in life and in death, to him, and not even to myself, not even to my family. As uncertain as this may seem, I am convinced that my destiny is secure in God. I would love to be successful, but what path exactly am I to take there? I cannot afford to be anyone else. Neither can you. So, what about you, what are you here for?

Jeremiah 10:23 GNT [23] Lord, I know that none of us are in charge of our own destiny; none of us have control over our own life. https://bible.com/bible/68/jer.10.23.GNT

Laura : That fiction must allow space for representation of every aspect of the human experience is unarguable. To effectively prohibit writers to tap their own interests in the application of their unique narrative skill would be a incredible misstep – as well as a misunderstanding of what true representation requires. However, it is our job as readers to ask questions about the kind of representation that we are promoting through our purchases and our words. To take, for example, Mark Haddon’s work as a sign that the literary portrayals of mental illness are where they should be is to miss the publishing world’s failure to centralise authors with a first-hand experience of psychological disorders. Yet, there remains a pervasive and very obvious fear of the deviance from social norms that mental illness represents. Where we have become more comfortable discussing the behind-closed-doors symptoms of depression or anxiety (particularly where that anxiety looks like stress, in its most socially-acceptable form), illnesses such as bipolar and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) – as well as symptoms that include self harm, mania etc – receive little attention. In many respects, our willingness to look at the more ‘acceptable’ forms of mental illness simply serves to reinforce the taboos elsewhere. We can pat ourselves on the back for a job well done, engaging in some self-congratulation for our ability to face the confusing world of someone with depression. In the same way, fictional portrayals of mental illness – told by those on the outside – allow us to comfortably assume that society is heading in the right direction, that representation is where it should be. The fact is that hearing about mental illness from someone who has suffered it remains a terrifying prospect to many of us. Populating fiction with voices that speak to the despair that drives suicide attempts or the details of psychosis is to entertain the limits of the mind’s capacity to cope with the experience of being human. It is horrifying. Yet, for many of us, it is also very real.

‘Get up.’ I opened my eyes to see her staring at me with a loathsome look of disgust and impatience. I shut my eyes tight and let out a yawn that I for a moment hoped would rid me of the anger that was quickly rising in my chest. ‘What time is it?’ I asked calmly, trying to hide my frustration behind a demeanor of tranquility and composure. I had had a long night. For the past three weeks I had been sleeping on the sofa, and it had not been a great experience so far. I had wanted to book a hotel room every night while I drove home from work but I never got myself around to do so. I would find myself at home however much I hated it, and I still wanted to see her. ‘I don’t know.’ she answered curtly with a smirk on her lips. ‘I want to clean up the room, you can find somewhere else to prolong your nap.’ She added after a minute of ominous silence during which I had sat up, put my hands on my thighs and planted my face to the ground, weeping silently that I was in this hole of torture. In response I lifted my face to hers. Our eyes met and I saw that glow that had won me over years ago while we were still in Medical School. Those were the same eyes that had driven me mad with infatuation. When I first met Alshie, I never thought that I would come to love and adore her as I did. I used to see her in Medical School Christian Union, and I would quickly say hi to her like I always did with other ladies, careful not to prolong a conversation into anything awkward and unseemly. She had about her a venerable air of composure that revealed an unmistakable and solid sense of direction in life. She was not outspoken but seemed to have a close friend who was her exact opposite. I never thought much of Alshie until we found ourselves serving in the Hospitality ministry together. And then bit by bit we got to know each other, and soon realized how similar we actually were. We loved the same things, we hated the same things. We went on to confess how we were both introverts. We also were first-borns. She was a writer as she was a reader, so was I. I had asked about her favorite read, and she had said she loved John Bunyan’s A Pilgrims Progress more than anything else; so did I. After she sent me the link to her blog, I stayed awake the whole night revelling in every single word of beautifully curated articles that it was impossible not to love. She was an inspiration. When we shared about how we got born again and how our journeys in salvation had been, I saw in Alshie a partner. I knew it in that instant that I was speaking to my wife. It had been said that for a Christian, there was no better place to find a wife that in Christian Union, and that it was particularly important to get a woman who loved the Lord. Here we could begin a relationship that would be guided by principle, and we would have so many people to guide us. Alshie had to be the one; she was decent, few of words, and she had a beautiful smile. I had told my then roommate Njoroge Maina, that I desire nothing less in a lady, and cared less about anything more. I just didn’t know how I would get past my fear and confess my feelings. And such a disposition of restrain was inspired more by the fear that my feelings would be unrequited than it was because of priggishness. I had had crushes for a million ladies, but I had never dared to ask them out or tell anyone about how I felt. In the end I was glad that I never did, because such feelings soon revealed themselves to be useless and distracting infatuations. Even so, I knew that to win this fair lady, I couldn’t afford to be faint at heart. I would soon need to tell my feelings if I would ever get Alshie to be with me. Every time I looked into the beautiful blue glint in her eyes, I wondered if she felt the same way for me. It is difficult to hide the flame of a candle with bundles of dry straw, for it soon dawned on me that my boys had sniffed me out, when one of my forebears stood me up after service one Sunday and questioned me on what my intentions with Alshie were. I immediately realized that my ways had been found out. When a man is in love, sooner or later the world will know, however much he hides it. ‘This cannot be a mistake Daniel,’ he had said, ‘if you are not sure that you love her, please don’t get it any further.’ I had stayed silent, looked down to the ground, my heart still racing hard as I had not expected the confrontation. ‘I am sure I love her,’ I had said with a kind of solemn and certain conviction that surprised me as much as it did Michael whose face softened and lit up into an encouraging smile of someone who seemed to have been moved by what had to be a genuine confession. ‘Well…’ he had remarked and gone on to share insights from his own experience when it came to the murky waters of romance. I didn’t ask Alshie out until a year later when I was completely sure of my feelings, or at least when I thought I was. ‘I’ll give you my response on Friday, after the service.’ That was the response she gave me and the only words she spoke after I seemed to be done with my prolonged speech about eternal devotion and fidelity. This was on Monday, and I immediately knew it would be torture for me. Never has five days been an eternity. I did not sleep a wink, neither did I properly study. Everyday my love for Alshie seemed to be multiplied by a factor of 1000. I loved her more with the passage of every second, and adored her the more with the dawn of each day. I soon knew that as long as she walked the earth, I would never be happy with anyone else. That Friday I arrived a little late for the service as I first needed to finish up a report on a Medical Camp we had had a week ago. I got in when the worship team was singing Yahweh Yahweh  by Nathaniel Bassey. I surreptitiously swept my eyes across the room. She was not there. I kept looking during the praise session, through the teaching session. I couldn’t bear to face the reality that she had not come for service until the Chairperson had given the benediction, until we had shared words of the Grace and we were dispersing for tea. I was cooked. Not coming for service meant one thing, she didn’t want to have to face me and give me the bad news, at least not so soon. I was broken, and did my best to avoid the chatty parties that would notice the streak of sadness in me that evening. While I was scrolling through Uber looking to see if I could get an affordable solo ride home, the message came up: ‘Hi Henry, I had to rush home this evening. Everything is alright. Let’s please talk on Sunday.’ I smiled, and read it all over again. I now strangely knew what her answer would be. When we got married, we truly loved and enjoyed each other’s company. Everyday was bright and exhilarating. We couldn’t get the fill of each others love. We kissed, we embraced, we caressed; we did everything imaginable that a happily wedded couple would do. Alshie was the evidence of the one thing I ever did right in my life. It was a win. ‘The greatest mistake a man can make in his life, is marring the wrong woman,’ I had heard it said and repeated a thousand times. I was proud at what I accomplished. I had bagged the price, what more could a man want in his life? As days went by, so did the happiness slowly fade with it. Everything was perfect until it was not. Slowly but surely we soon realize that we never liked each others company as much. We had drunk to our fill from the pitcher of love until it was empty. Suddenly we did not love one another anymore. Everything soon became mechanic and artificial until it was impossible to put up with the facade anymore. I would look into her eyes, and I could see coldness where I had seen a fiery passion. She was not beautiful anymore, she just looked like any regular lady I would meet in the streets. I hated the shape of her nostrils and how tiny her ears were. There was no longer any joy in going back home. Her presence was suffocating, she gave out an air of death. As each day passed, it became clear that even though I had never hated her, I had never loved her either. She soon, with a chilling air of insouciance, confessed that letting me into her life was surrendering to a chimera and a whim she now regretted every second of her life. We had thought we were soulmates when we never were; we had only forced ourselves to believe it, and reality had soon intruded. Alshie was a great lady, but she was never supposed to be my wife. It might have turned out much better if we had stayed friends. Everything might have been fine if nothing ever turned romantic. ‘The Papers?’she asked. A tear fell from my eye. I had still not mustered the courage to sign the divorce papers. Maybe I still believed things would take a different course for the best, but would they? Divorce? Who would have thought that I would be caught up in a divorce? ‘I am yet to sign them.’ I said and rising up. ‘So this is love,’ I stuttered silently as I made my way up the matted staircase to take a shower.

It didn’t sit well with her that she had fallen in love with a man three years younger than she; she had done the arithmetic in her mind a million times already; 2003 minus 2000. Was he even a man or just a boy? She did not understand herself, neither did she understand her waving affections. Just like other principled ladies in the field of medicine, even though she never put it out explicitly, she had desires and ambitions of being anything but a wife; she was a career woman before she was a family woman. Maybe she would get married, maybe even fall in love, but it was not something that nagged at her heart the way she was drawn to creating her space in the professional world of health care. She was well respected, probably feared a little by her peers who thought her such a resolute and stern lady to indulge trifles. Yet her kindness and amicability was known to everyone of her acquaintances. Her smile had a bright glint in it and a warmth that made it easy to engage her in conversation. Her attention was so pleasurable and her lady friends and male alike always seemed to revel in it. The only passion that had seemed to greater than her desire to succeed in the medicine was her love for God and an unquenchable desire to be a vessel of his using. Her dedication was to eternity and her life had very little to do with the vile things of the day. That’s why romance had been out of the question until he got to meet the young man who had strangely taken the reins of her heart and stole her peace. That morning, it was unusually cold and she had covered herself in a blue fluffy shawl. Her steps seemed heavy and measured, and in the depths of her smile she was miserable and shaken. The whole of her knew she was clutching at sin but her heart had been really stubborn in letting the thought go. Just the thought of the idea had something despicable and unseemly about it, and after a few minutes of analysis seemed obviously repugnant and unrealistic, but as the consciousness of its clandestineness grew so did the vehemence of her affection. The ongoing realization that such a kind of affection was not only unacceptable but impossible caused the roots of her desire to grow deeper and more obdurate. It was not something she could openly confess to her peers and so she concealed it in the depths of her heart that was clearly growing more desperate and forlorn. Maybe she had allowed her heart to grow so cold and she was becoming a little carnal. Had she forgotten all the lessons she had learnt about purity and reasonableness. It was not that her desires for her colleague had anything to do with a sexual underpinning, it was the kind of fondness that made her to pine for him when he was absent from fellowship and prayer meetings. It was always delightful to have a conversation with him. She loved how he looked into her eyes when he spoke to her about anything. She might have wanted to be shy but she never was, instead, his kind gaze only warmed her heart and made her hope the moment would last forever. She soon understood that her feelings were clearly an infatuation that needed to be nipped at the bud, and surmised that she only needed to set her priorities right again. Her love for him meant nothing, if it was love at all. And so it was that she gave her time to reading a few books on love, dating, and marriage. None of them made any mention or gave any illustration of how a lady would handle the reality of falling in love with a man younger than she. How she would handle her fate was therefore left to her conscience and the scriptures. As she lifted her hands in worship, tears flowed from her eyes, her knees wobbled a little bit and she almost lost her balance. She gracefully went on her knees and a cry rose up in the depth of her soul. ‘Lord, take this vile thing away from me. I can’t bear to sin against you in this way!’ She sobbed herself away. Those around her admired how ardently she prayed, and hated themselves for their self-consciousness that made it impossible for them to raise their hands and call on God with such passion. She would have laid prostate on the floor was it not that the worship session had just wound up and the praise session was beginning; she might also have soiled her dress for the floor of the hall where they held their Sunday services wasn’t as clean and as pristine as her hostel room; besides, she had trained herself to keep a guard over her religious passions that might have been seen as excess and unseemly zeal. She managed to gather herself up in the same graceful way she had gotten on her knees, then she reached for her purse to get her handkerchief and dry her teary eyes. All of it did not matter anymore, it was now time to praise the Lord. Someone came in to occupy the seat beside her. She didn’t look, she knew she looked awful, and she didn’t want to show it to her neighbor. So she didn’t turn to say hi to the person as she would normally do. ‘Turn to your neighbor and give them a high five!’ came an imploration from the stage. She managed a smile and turned to the neighbor she had hitherto been avoiding. It was him.

It had been a long and boring day. Anthony had opted to stay indoors as he was usually drawn to do. He had hoped to get far reading a book he had borrowed from the county library exactly a week ago but he was yet to get past the first two pages which he had read on the night of the day he borrowed it. He had laid it aside to go through a few slides of a document on the pathology of the skin, he had never picked it up again. Tonight as he went through his pathology notes, a feeling of great weariness overpowered him and brought him to think of what hour of the day it was exactly. It was still nine o’clock, and even though it crossed his mind, and his bed was just beside his study table like most of the other students who stayed in self-contained rooms were, he quickly dismissed the thought. Though he felt so tired, an irrepressible feeling of guilt kept him from going to bed, for about two minutes, and then as fickle as most of his other resolutions also were, his fatigue won over his guilt. As he got into bed, he remembered all the things he was supposed to have done before the day ended but had not gotten himself to do. By now it was clear to him that he usually took a lot into his hands than he could possibly manage, and just like most of his colleagues, when there was so much to do, he did nothing. “Terry,” he whispered. Terry was a second year pharmacy student he had met during a talk that the university administration had organized on the ‘Administrative Positions in Health Care Student Medics Should Think About.’ Had he met Terry somewhere else he wouldn’t have been thinking of her as he had had all through the weekend. He had wanted to sit next to her but she had gotten up to leave immediately Anthony seated himself beside her. She went out to pick a call. When she came, she chose to seat in another section of the room that had relatively few people. Anthony had not seen her come in, neither did he ever see her again. If he had, may be he would have asked her to be his girlfriend.

Was it ever fair to judge a lady by her looks? Did a lady deserve the attention of a man simply because she had a beautiful face or a shapely body? Life had taught us to be materialistic, and to judge things on the basis of how they appeared to be rather than how they really were. When people got married, or had girlfriends, didn’t they mostly do so for the face and forgot all about the soul. But did a beautiful face ever make a lady a good person? We might have taught ourselves to believe it that way, to associate beauty with innocence and elegance with graciousness. Everything I believed in had crumbled, and now, I was certain that beauty could be the most beguiling thing, and to judge a lady by her looks had to be among the most unwise and unfair things to do. A lady was only beautiful because of her mind and her dispositions, because of what she believed in and stood for. And she was beautiful when she was sensible rather than sensual. As long as she carried herself with dignity and honor. But what did that now mean for Brenda’s dignity, or her honor. Would I still respect her as I would? Brenda had always been the perfect embodiment of beauty at its extreme, prettier than any lady in the world, yet still the sum of the most serene and commendable virtues anyone could think of. She was flawless in every human scale of judgment, and no one would ever have blamed me for falling in love with her. Even my classmates who were in relationships confessed that if they had only suspected they stood a chance with her, they would have jilted their girlfriends. I think I would too. Anyone would. We had just wrapped up our ObsGyn rotations, and we were getting into Pediatrics. Word had it that it would be the most free styling rotation; without a proper system for follow up of the students, and without a definite authority to answer to, and a standard of performance to press towards, it was a certain thing that the students would mind their own business. By a strange quirk of fate, Brenda and I got assigned as bed mates. That meant that we would clerk our patients together, get to listen to the version of their stories, and draft their history for presentation, together. I had not clerked so many patients in ObsGyn. Though I continually promised myself that I would clerk some more before the end of the rotation, we were soon submitting our logbooks and that was a done deal. I had not been myself since Brenda confided in me about her state. I had always been a little confused and edgy, but I now knew that I was a mess. I rasped my lab coat trying to straighten the untidy creases hoping that I would not meet a resident pediatrician who would ask me why I didn’t have my name tag. We walked up to the first bed by the door, the child’s eyes warmed up to us, she was smiling quite dazzlingly, and had it not been for the medicine lying on the bedside table, or the line she still had on her left hand, nobody would have thought she was ill. Beside the medicine casing also lay a barely eaten banana and an unopened loaf of bread. Her eyes were teary and seemed to be popping out of their sockets but she still managed a resolute smile. “Where is mom?” I asked. “I am with my dad, I don’t have a mom” she answered with a palpable struggle in her voice, but with such endurance to relay that information, “He’s gone out to air some of my clothes.” “Okay. How are you feeling today?” Brenda asked, squatting a little to level her face with hers, “what’s your name?” “Tiffany. I have a surgery tomorrow, I know I am going to die, but that will make Papa sad.” I gasped. I never expected a kid, about the age of five speak so macabrely. “No, don’t say that, Tiffany. You won’t die. You will be okay.” Brenda said reassuringly taking her hands. “I want to rest, when I die I will rest. Papa will rest.” “Tiffany!” Brenda interjected softly. I felt broken by every word Tiffany spoke, yet I only stood there silent, as mute as I always was when it was important that I said something. “God is with you, okay?” “Is He?” Young Tiffany asked looking at Brenda, “everyone says that all the time, I don’t believe it anymore.” She had a kind of apathetic and solemn look on her face that seemed to say that she was content with her fate, and that she didn’t want to believe in fairy tales or anything like it anymore. “He certainly is, darling,” Tears came to my eyes. My heart hollered silently when I regarded the depth with which young Tiffany spoke. She was a mature person trapped in the body of a little girl. Her view towards life was so sublime unlike the frivolity with which most of us had taught ourselves to think with. Brenda knelt down to Tiffany, embraced her, and quickly wiped the tears in her eyes. I was not sure if any lady could do what she did in that moment, they all seemed so invested in themselves, so concerned with their own affairs to be touched by the selfless story of a young girl willing to die if that would end her father’s suffering. What did I really live for? My love for Brenda in that moment had been multiplied by a thousand. I adored her. I loved her for being so different, so motherly, so kind. But what did my love mean now that she carried another man’s child. She was not perfect anymore, and I could not go on loving her anymore, yet I knew it deep within me that if my affections for Brenda could ever change, they would only increase. And in that moment it struck me, I had to convince Brenda to keep the baby.