LIVIA'S BOOKLET

  (A short story for Blood Cancer Awareness Month) The first thing Lhane noticed was how tired he had become. Not the ordinary tiredness that followed a long day at work, but the kind that settled into his bones and made even small things feel unnecessarily heavy. He stopped taking the stairs. He slept longer. He began turning down invitations because he simply did not have the energy to explain why he was always tired. Kazina noticed before he did. She noticed the way he held his body when he thought she wasn't looking. She noticed how often he pressed his hand against his chest. She noticed the silence between his words. "Something isn't right," she told him one evening. Lhane smiled. "You worry too much." "I know," she replied. "But this time, let me." A few weeks later, the doctors gave them a diagnosis neither of them was prepared to hear. Blood cancer. The word seemed too large for the small consultation room. Lhane stared at the fl...

(A prose piece for World Heart Day) We speak about the heart as though it only knows how to beat. But the heart carries more than blood. We ask it to carry grief without breaking. Love without becoming foolish. Fear without becoming weak. Disappointment without becoming bitter. We ask it to keep going through things we sometimes don't even have the courage to name. And yet, for all the poetry we give the heart, we sometimes forget that it is also an organ that needs our care. We remember it when something goes wrong. We remember the importance of movement after we have spent years being inactive. We remember what we eat after the doctor tells us to be careful. We remember our blood pressure when the numbers become frightening. We remember that smoking, excessive alcohol use, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity and other risk factors can quietly increase the burden placed on our cardiovascular health. Perhaps caring for the heart should begin before it has to ask for our attention....

  (A poem for World Alzheimer's Day) There comes a quiet kind of forgetting that does not ask permission. It enters through little doors— a name misplaced, a familiar road suddenly unfamiliar, a question asked twice before the first answer has settled. At first, we laugh gently. We say, "You are getting old." We find the missing keys and place them in waiting hands, never imagining that one day the keys will not be the thing that is lost. Then slowly, the house begins to change. Photographs remain on the walls, but the faces inside them become difficult to name. Yesterday folds into today. Today slips quietly toward somewhere we cannot follow. And there is a particular sorrow in being remembered only in pieces. A daughter becomes the kind woman who visits. A husband becomes a familiar stranger. A childhood home becomes a room with beautiful curtains and no history. Still, love does not always require memory. Sometimes it is found in the hand that reaches back when yours r...

(A prose piece for World Suicide Prevention Day) There are people who become very good at saying, "I'm fine." They say it at work. They say it at home. They say it when someone asks them how they are doing and they know the person is already walking away before the answer has finished leaving their mouth. "I'm fine." Sometimes those two words are simply the truth. And sometimes they are a curtain. Behind them may be exhaustion. Grief. Loneliness. Shame. Financial pressure. Relationship problems. Trauma. Depression. Fear. A feeling that life has become too heavy to carry. Not everyone who is struggling looks broken. Some people continue going to work. They answer messages. They laugh with friends. They post photographs. They take care of children. They show up for everyone else while quietly wondering how much longer they can keep showing up for themselves. That is why suicide prevention belongs to all of us. Not because we can always see the signs. We can...

  (A short story for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month) Mirembe was seven years old when he decided that hospitals were too white. He told his mother they needed more colour. "Even the walls look tired," he whispered. His mother laughed for the first time in days. She had forgotten what his laughter sounded like. Mirembe had been diagnosed with cancer months earlier. Since then, their lives had become a collection of hospital appointments, medicines, blood tests and long afternoons waiting for doctors. But Mirembe remained Mirembe. He still asked too many questions. He still wanted to know why clouds moved. He still believed that every nurse secretly had a favourite child. And every night, before sleeping, he prayed. "God, please let me wake up tomorrow." His mother once asked him why he prayed such a simple prayer. He shrugged. "Because tomorrow might be a good day." She turned away so he would not see her cry. Children should be thinking about school. Abo...