Lily.

It's been four years,hard to believe,four years seems so distant now.

The sterile hospital walls looked cold and dank.We sat in the waiting room as they got my aunt admitted into the hospital ward for the fateful event that was about to follow the next morning.

The next morning came quickly,as we sat outside the operating hall with bated breaths,the operation scheduled to begin at 8 am and finish at 9,minor delays unaccounted,it proceeded as planned as we heard the cries of what was to be from my sister.Through the nine hours that she was here,all she did was moan in pain with silence reserved for her breaths.

9 hours later,she passed away,after a quarter of a day of pain and suffering.

My family didn't let me know,I figured she was only sleeping(the stupid child that I was).

It was raining quite heavily that day.

What followed was a burial,in natural order,which I neither knew about nor attended.It all seemed like a cold goodbye to me.

Later,I got to know a little more behind it all.The incurable disorder Spina Bifida and the ignorant doctors,the nine hours of pain,everything.

Spina Bifida is a disorder affecting a child pre-birth,due to a deficiency of folic acid,it inhibits the growth of the vertebral column,thereby preventing numerous bodily functions to occur normally.It is almost always accompanied by an excess of cerebrospinal fluid,adding to the other complications that arise from this disorder.

Spina Bifida is usually diagnosed at the second month of pregnancy,much different from the eighth month detection we were given.We couldn't do much about it.

In simple terms,it is having an incomplete spinal column,leaving the child with an open,pulsating wound at birth,leaving the child in pain,hopelessly awaiting imminent death.

It all seems unfair that a person should die on the same day they were born.Unfair seems short of explaining what it is.Unfair that the little time they were here,they spent it in unimaginable pain.

Beyond unfair,that is what this is.Beyond unfair.