Takes a Village to Mourn a Mother

Preface:

This poem was inspired by my time as an internship doctor in one of the many rural parts of Indonesia. As a newly graduated medical doctor, I served for a year in a remote area, immersing myself in a community with scarce healthcare resources. During one of my shifts, I was deeply impacted by the death of a mother. She was a young woman with many stories yet to share with her children. I thought to myself that perhaps her life could have been saved with better access to healthcare.

In the small hospital, the entire community gathered around as I performed CPR with the limited tools available. This scene felt both intimate and overwhelming. According to the law, which was strictly followed in urban hospitals where I did my clinical rotations, such moments are restricted to healthcare professionals. The villagers’ collective grief, and my own sense of helplessness, left a lasting impression on me.

This poem is an attempt to capture that moment where hope and loss intertwined, in a place where medical care often falls short. Looking back now, I realize that no matter where we doctors are, we will always encounter such situations of utter helplessness.

In the darkest part of night, late was the hour it struck, 

Through thin, tired walls, echoed the cries of fading luck. 

Half awake, I rose to the call of help I heed, 

A young doctor I was, with duty bound in speed. 

“It’s a code blue,” the nurses whispered low, 

A young woman lay ahead, her heartbeat turning slow. 

Thus began my fight, hands pressed with hope and care, 

Villagers gathered, their prayers filled the air. 

With all we had in this place worn and bare, 

No miracle rose from the litany of prayer. 

Perhaps, I thought, in another time or some other land, 

Her life would not slip through our failing, human hands. 

Then came the cries of grief, of anger, of pain, 

I stood helpless, knowing hope itself was vain. 

They say it takes a village to raise a child, 

Yet it takes a village, too, to mourn a mother.