Chapter 14 | The boy who had his periods

“You can kid the world, but not your sister.”  - Charlotte Gray

In the winter of 1995, my baby brother, Altaaf was born. He was unplanned. Mama said that at that point of her life she really wasn't ready to deal with another child.

Ironically, Altaaf turned out to be a rather clingy child and he hung on to Mama as if his life depended on it. Even though I was just seven I became rather possessive of him.

Despite the tension between her and Papa, Mama never neglected him but in some way I was a secondary mother to him.

If he was reprimanded, I took his part. If he cried, I ran to take him into my arms. If he was hurt, I nursed him.

When he was one years old, he experienced bleeding from his bowels. We tease him now saying that he had, in his own way experienced periods. At the time though, it wasn't funny.

We immediately rushed him to hospital. He was admitted for the night and placed on a drip and we returned home praying that he would be alright.

Later that day we returned during visiting hours only to find my little brother shaking the cot as if to free himself from a cage, screaming his tiny lungs out.

My heart ached at the sight of him. His napkin sagged from his bottom and his scream came in ragged breaths. Here was my little brother crying in pain, while two nurses sat calmly by a cot nearby, making absolutely no attempt to soothe a wailing child.

Even Mama, who is mostly calm, was shaken. Despite the nurses protest, Mama demanded for a mattress and made a bed besides his cot. There was no way Mama would have left him alone that night.

When he came back home, I hovered over him for days, not leaving him out of my sight for fear that something awful would happen to him should I leave him for even a second.

I had adapted to the role of 'big sister' quite easily but little did I know how difficult this would eventually prove.