"The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart."
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
"Mam, your child", said the attendant nurse standing at the doorway to the woman's room. She was a middle-aged Haitian woman wearing light blue hospital shirt and pants.
The woman slightly shifted her gaze to the right to observe the new visitor, an apathetic expression marring her wrinkled face. She doesn't respond, but her eyes drift to the figure wrapped in white cloth being held by the nurse's gloved hands. The nurse comes closer and places the child beside the woman. The woman didn't reciprocate for many seconds simply observing the innocent and fragile baby boy wrapped loosely in white linen fabrics. Her parched throat stirred with speech and a coarse and weak voice whispered.
"A boy...?"
Yes, her child was an average looking baby boy without the characteristic innocent beauty and flawlessness one would expect from a newborn. His body fat was less than a typical child and his rib marks was slightly observable due to the thin layer of skin clinging tightly to his small body. The boy's eyes, still unadapted were nearly tightly shut, only being slightly squinted open as its innocent mind perceived the blurry and novel experiences before him. It's small hands gently groped towards the woman's garments as it struggled to climb onto her lap. It was so vulnerable and helpless, without any characteristic beauty but innocent all the same. The child wanted his mother.
The woman remained motionless on the bed, the nurse long since left the doorway, quietly closing the weak door behind her. The woman's eyes furrowed slightly as it followed the child's innocent gestures and movements. Her heart which had long grown numb began to be filled with an inexplicable sense of love and affection, as though the feelings that were locked away were suddenly loosened, her mind suddenly under the onslaught of a barrage of different emotions. Her trembling hands picked up the child as silent tears rolled down her hallow cheeks. All her life she struggled to believe in God, wondering how such things can happen to people if God really cares, if God even exists. But at this moment a single name came to her mind, a name that might make life hard for a child growing up in America, but a name she deeply chose, nonetheless.
"Chinemeze...my little prince".
Just as she said this, her heart seized, and she collapsed onto the bed. The heart monitor beside her beat incessantly throughout the room. Just as the nurses rushed in horrified, they saw the little boy constantly tugging at his mother's sleeve before it raised up its face and cried mournfully. At that moment the signals flatlined.
"Waaaaaaaahhhh!"