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I felt like an intruder standing outside the room, surrounded by people--people with bloodshot eyes, sniffling and whispering to one another. Some of them glanced my way, probably wondering why I was standing among them with violin and bow in my hands, but curiosity was quickly overtaken by grief--grief that numbed all senses, killing slowly but surely. Through the glass walls I saw a small body on the bed, unaware of all the locomotion that was going on around her. She was letting go. Her body could not take the suffering much longer.

The family requested the happy birthday song. A male representative of the family told us that her birthday is the 26th of this month, "but she is not likely to..." he stopped abruptly to look at the woman beside him, the child's mother. She was in a trance-like state, oblivious to the crowd and the quiet chaos around her. A little girl of about six years old ran to her, clinging onto her dress. She slowly stroked her hair with one hand, while resting the other hand on her pregnant belly. Beside her, another woman spoke to her softly in a foreign tongue, but she did not seem to hear. Her glance floated across the glass walls into the room and rested on the small body inside. There was no life on the mother's face, as there was none on the pale little face of her daughter. Grief has taken it from one, while death was slowly claiming it from the other.

Half a dozen pairs of eyes turned to me as I explained in Mandarin what I have been requested to play. I could have had a horn grown out of my forehead and would not arouse any more response from this group of grieving friends and relatives. I quietly put the bow on the violin.

As the quiet melody slowly flowed out, filling the deadly silence, the mother suddenly burst into the room, sobbing and speaking agitatedly. She went to her daughter's side, tears shedding on her unresponsive and tightly shut eyes. She desperately called her name, but an invisible wall separated the mother and daughter, making the few inches between them seem like a distance of increasing miles.

We could still hear the grieving mother when we visited a couple of rooms down the corridor. I thought of my own mother, who went through the same thing seven years ago at an intensive care unit. I do not remember what happened then, as I was constantly in and out of consciousness. She, however, would remember it for the rest of her life. Even though these past seven years have been difficult for both of us, more so than anyone who has not gone through similar things could understand, we carry with us a strong awareness of responsibility that keeps us going through all obstacles. It is the responsibility of being alive, the responsibility of taking breaths, the responsibility of having a pumping heart, a working brain, all the hemoglobin-carrying erythrocytes in our blood, and much more.

My heart goes out to the little girl's mother, and all mothers and fathers who have lost or are losing the precious gifts that have been entrusted them. Times like this remind us to mourn with those who mourn. Times like this also remind those of us who are still living in this world to ask ourselves what we are doing today with the life we have been so graciously given.