Taken Away by Ebola

                     
I imagine her office. Oval shaped, behind her busy table is a huge see-through shelve that displayed her plaques and awards -- a hardworking doctor who had dedicated long years of service to saving life, and to humanity, some revealed. The table is wide, and amidst the objects of medics strewed on it is her family picture, all smiling, all exposing a set of excellent teeth. On that day, when a patient was wheeled into the hospital, she might have taken another look at her accomplishments; another look at her beautiful family well-framed in a nicely shot photo before dashing out to attend to him.

When she passed, as preparation for her cremation begins, the husband and the son may take a last visit to this office-- not to remind themselves of her death, but to have a last connection with her dedication to service, to sniffle the objects that smelled of her and touch the things that felt like her because they may never touch her again. Even the smother of ash, the sad remains of her's, may be disposed, unsympathetically, by a government with preoccupied mind, a government that care less. And so she passed. From the same life she was desperate to save; from curbing the spread of a disease that may have sparked beyond its current spark had she discharged Sawyer, despite pressures that trailed his admittance.

Ebola drifted into Nigeria from Liberia. It had come, unexpectedly, from a comfortable looking Liberian, Patrick Sawyer, who seemed to possess all the comforts of life. Dr. Adadevoh, on duty the day he was admitted, must have received him, perhaps unalarmed because the initial symptoms of soar throat, pains, vomiting may have all been mistaken for a common fever. Perhaps because Sawyer didn't look like someone who could possibly have Ebola. Perhaps because Adadevoh must have trusted the Nigerian government to have the borders well screened of visitors from the troubled countries. She must have wrongly thought. Because she would end up being the first known Nigerian to contact the disease, and the fifth to die of it, after two nurses who had attended to Sawyer in that same hospital had initially died, followed by an ECOWAS official.

Adadevoh had a son and a husband. She was a daughter, an aunt, a cousin, maybe a niece or a sister. I imagine her circle of friends and colleagues. Graciously hoping, all praying that she recovered. I imagine her in an isolated ward, only visited by few friends and families all masked, barely touching her, only gesturing and nodding, leaving almost immediately they came. In one of her pictures, she had firm eyes, Adadevoh's, like those of a woman who seemed to have them fixated on a goal, and is intent to have that goal achieved. She must have been courageous; or otherwise, would have sent anything from Liberia to a no-sight distance. In her isolation, during her battle with the deadly Ebola, she must have thought of all these and that and become embittered, sad that she couldn't live to see her exuding more courage; or see her boy and husband clap her out of isolation like Kent Brantly, the American doctor. Death, in its grieving state, must have clasped her with firm arms, luring her into a sound sleep in her wildest thought. In the words of Decontee Sawyer, wife of the deceased Patrick Sawyer:

                              "I share the pains that the family members
                             of the Nigerian doctor are going through.
                             It is just a pity that Patrick had to cause 
                            this damage both in Liberia and Nigeria. I
                           want to reach out to them and express how
                          deeply saddened and sorry I am for their
                          loss and pain...I pray for all of the families
                          whose loved ones were taken away by this 
                          merciless killer Ebola, especially those
                          affected by Patrick's actions."
       
May we all have the courage to bear our irreplaceable losses. May the souls of all the departed from the Ebola scourge be in peace wherever they may be.