A Heartbreaking Story Of Infant Death

PITY US WITHOUT YOU

We sadden ourselves in pity for the very young
Who goes from us before their time has really begun?
Yet in truth, I feel 'tis pity ill spent.

Is it not so you cannot know happiness until sadness has offered you a comparison?

Tragic is the death of one so young, but for whom? The infants have no comparison of sadness to distress them. Do they not go to where happiness was thought of?

They go to Heaven- certainly, Hell is down below, is it not called Earth?
Pity then those that remain. Many have been the times when I asked myself; the longer we stay, does it become easier or harder?

Surely infant pity us, for we will, without you, know more of Hell before we can know your Heaven.

I wrote that verse in 1975/6. I was 28 years old and had come into nursing late. My wife to be nursed in the ICU (Intensive care unit) and they had lost a baby, and she was of course deeply upset. I was a student in Casualty (A&E) and had also been in tears over the death of a 2-year-old. I was in the throes of a divorce and MY 2-year-old son bore a strong resemblance with his fair skin.

It broke me up, but nurses cry secretly, don't they? Or they try to. I finished as a Charge Nurse on A&E. There were times I would carry a wrapped-up infant down the corridors and visitors would all say "ahh", assuming it was a poorly baby when in fact I was carrying the little love to the mortuary. It was still the best job I EVER had!

Tom Walker