The waiting room

I’ve been to hospitals many times. Two times dengue, three stomach infections, and one round of Covid. Each time, I stayed for at least 10 days. I became familiar with the throbbing saline needles, terribly sticky cannulas, and the sterile scent of antiseptic. I used to cry so much. Mostly out of pain. But barely out of fear.

Hospitals never scared me.

Until today.

Today, I wasn’t the patient. I was just accompanying my mom for a check-up. And something inside me shifted.

I sat in the waiting area, watching lives unfold quietly around me. 

A son gently helping his old father walk, 

A woman waiting beside her friend, 

A mother trying to soothe her crying child, 

and gradually, fear crept in.

What if my father falls seriously ill one day?

What if I am not there when my parents need me the most?

I was thinking about them. And that terrified me more than any needle ever did.

Convinced myself that grief is the coat we all must wear. It spares no age no heart no kin. We all must fight and sometimes give in. 

Just then, the nurse called out my mother's name. It snapped me out of that spiral. 

I stood up, walked in with her, and sat beside her as the doctor spoke. And when I heard that it was nothing serious but just back pain that needed some rest and medication, I was relieved.

This familiar place suddenly held unfamiliar emotions.

And that’s how I knew,
I am not a child anymore.