A day I will never forget...

Today, someone shared a sad experience of losing his son through a car accident 2 years ago.

He paused a while after he broke the first sentence.

I could almost feel his pain... Before I knew, tears started rolling down my face.

My mind was clouded after that, I was partially crying for his pain... and partially crying for mine. For the pain I felt after that accident at MIL's home last year was slowly creeping back.

If I had been a little bit unluckier, I would have suffered similar loss.

It was the noon of first day of CNY. Hubby and I decided to cook the lunch for that day and requested MIL to look after QianHui. We put her into the baby walker. We've always been very careful when we do so by ensuring that the doors to the stairs were always closed, because MIL's house is a 3-storey shop house where the ground floor is rented out to a coffee shop and we stay at the 1st and 2nd floor.

Cooking takes place at the 1st floor and that day, the adults were sitting around and kids were playing at the 1st floor while we did cooking at the back.

Around noon, some relatives arrived to have lunch and as everyone was busy chatting and catching up, someone left the doors opened.

QianHui who was in the baby walker took no time to move to the door and before anyone could realize, went out the doors towards the staircase.

SIL saw it after that and quickly rushed out to pull QianHui back.

But she was too late.

QianHui practically rolled down the flight of stairs in her baby walker. We were lucky that the base of the baby walker was heavy and she did not topple while going down. She fell when she reached the end of the stairs and hit the shoe rack, bumping a large bruise on her forehead.

When SIL rushed out to pull QianHui, I was at the kitchen. Upon hearing her shouting, I almost knew it must be an accident involving one of my daughters. I dashed out so quickly and when I did not see QianHui among the crowd gathering at the top of the stairs, my heart almost stopped beating. I ran down only to see SIL carrying QianHui up and she almost lost her voice crying.

I wanted to cry so much but I was tearless. I tried to comfort her but to no avail. She cried herself to sleep while we were rushing to Sunway Medical Centre's A&E.  I felt so helpless.  I was so scared seeing her fell asleep, as if I would lose her by just letting her do that.

After the doctor confirmed that QianHui was okay and only suffered minor bruises on her forehead and her knees, she then sent us home.

Tears only kicked in later in the evening when we were having dinner and reality slowly sank in... of how bad things could've turned out...

Nowadays, whenever QianHui learned a new thing or does something worth remembering. The back of my mind can't help but to remind myself that I almost never had the chance to see that.

Almost...