7 Years...Remembering

Today is my cousin’s 7th birthday. Today is also the 7th anniversary of the death of my Granny’s best friend’s grandson. He died exactly 12 hours after my lil cousin was born….

I remember it like it was yesterday. He had sickle cell, and had a crisis a couple days before, and was admitted into hospital. Apparently he hadn’t been taking his meds properly-if at all.

I was living with my aunty at the time, and I remember her coming into my room telling me her waters had broken. We called the ambulance….they came, and we headed off to the hospital. By the time we got to the hospital, my aunty was 7cm dialated…..In the next half hour my lil cousin popped out (literally)….the training nurse didn’t even get to put on her 2nd glove before my cousin flew out!!! She was born at 8.30am on 8th January 2001.

12 hours later in a hospital an hour away from where my cousin was born, lil D took his final breath…..8.30pm on 8th January 2001.

It was a day filled with happiness followed by sadness. Both my granny and his granny are convinced that lil D was waiting for my cousin to arrive, before he went…..they do say that with every birth, there is a death…and this was the case.

We all felt so guilty being happy that my cousin was here, when a family we knew very closely were feeling such heartache…it was almost unbelieveable.

8th January 2008 marks the 7th year….of a life brought into this world, and a life that left it……Lil D-you’ll never be forgotten….Continue to Rest In Peace……Happy Birthday Miss T-my favourite lil cousin!!

8th January…forever a day filled with emotions…