The Gift of life

Authors Avatar

06/04/2003                                                                Prashanthini.S

THE GIFT OF LIFE

Sally lay there gazing at the hospital ceiling decorated with numbers, letters and colours which even a four year old would get bored at watching all day. The least they could do was to put her in a normal ward. But no…. the mere reason that she was under sixteen resulted in her being admitted into the paediatric ward. She stared at the bavilion of colours and cascaded into a vortex of memories of the past.

        Sally gazed at her watch at what seemed to be the 50th time in that hour. Time couldn’t have gone any slower. She was sitting there at the back of the class in Sunday school hoping it would finish soon. Waking up at eight in the morning on a Sunday was torture as it is but also having to put up with Hitler at the front of the class was just living hell. On usual days she wouldn’t have minded but today she just wasn’t in the mood. Her head was throbbing like a chick waiting to hatch. She just didn’t understand why. She wasn’t prone to illness like her mum or her sister. She was the healthiest person in the family and the only person in the family who hadn’t spent a night in hospital before.

After what seemed to be like ten hours, the bell rang. She quickly filed out of the class with her fellow students who were all eagerly stampeding out of school. She waited outside for her sister Sophie to come and departed on her mum’s car. She planned on finishing her English coursework as soon as she got home, but as she entered her room, her head started throbbing again but this time even worse. She consulted her mum, who gave her some paracetomalt to halt the pain. Her mum, Jane suffered from severe migraine so she knew how to handle headaches. But the paracetomalt didn’t seem to be working for Sally. Her headache was so unbearable that she clutched her head very tightly and flopped onto the bed.

Join now!

Sally woke up next morning with the same headache and was surprised to see the house half empty. She went downstairs into the kitchen and was greeted by her mum cooking rice.

“Since when have we ever had rice for breakfast” Sally enquired.

Jane started laughing.

        “Breakfast? Do u know what time it is young lady? 1 o’clock”.

        “WHAT! One o’clock. What about school? What about netball? Why didn’t you wake me up?” replied Sally quiet startled and gazing around frantically for a clock.

        “Calm down Sal. Sit down at the table and I’ll explain everything to you” her mother ...

This is a preview of the whole essay