It was a usual rainy day. I was heading towards home after a long exhausting day. The roads were wet and vacant. It was slowly turning dark the signal turned red and I stopped my car, played my favorite song, closed my eyes and leaned with the seat to just let all the worries evaporate. Suddenly, my solitude was disturbed by the knock on window mirror. I lift my head up and pulled the mirror down. In front of me was a small lad. He was drenched in rain from head to toe. In his hand were few bouquet of flowers. I caressed his chubby cheeks and asked what he want he passed me a smile and show me his vibrant flowers .I reached for my wallet and gave him few bucks. He gave me the flowers that had almost lost their fragrance and freshness. I said him, ‘It was a gift from my side to you'. He stared at me for a while and replied, “Ummm! Sorry but I can't accept it without selling flowers ! I peered at him, gave him a big smile and demanded to hand over flowers . He asked me back, “which one will you like?” I replied, “ I would buy any that you will endow”. He explored his small basket and took out the roses and said, “ this is the most beautiful of all have this!” I offered him a ride to his home that he accepted happily and sat next to me. On the way ,we both had a little conversation He told me that his name is Hussain and he lives in a nearby slum and is the only breadwinner of his family; an enfeebled and widow mother and 2 younger siblings. He sells the flowers made by his family without using any kind of machine or tools. I appreciated his hard work and dedication towards family. I stopped the car by a local restaurant and ordered burger and fries and gave one to the little boy he devoured the food and finished within few seconds. And it was then I realized that he was hungry; he was starving. I gave him more food so that he can feed his family with this. As I drive through the link road towards his area he showed me where his house was. It was almost near to collapse. I asked, “Hussain don't you feel bad about yourself. You don't have a good house to live, sufficient food to eat, you have to work while children of your age are going to school” He smiled and replied with words that still echoed in my head, “If you had seen that smile on my family face when I return home, the spark in my sibling eyes that lightens up by me, you would have left your job and start doing what I do” His words left me speechless my jaws dropped open. He grinned, jumped out of car and thanked me for the favor. I just stayed there for while to make sure he had reached home safely and what I saw was astounding. As Hussain walked past the narrow rough path, he opened his food parcel, took out a piece of bread and fed the stray dog. It sent a shiver down my spine and I bursted into tears. On that day, I learnt that life is not about living for yourself, grabbing all for you but life is living for others , to put others first and then yourself. I found out the reason behind the distress in my life, the cause of my loneliness, the reason for lacking happiness despite having all facilities ;it was all because I wanted everything first for me and then for other folks. Obliged by the lesson young boy taught me, I went to a property dealer the other day and asked for a little furnished house that he showed me .few weeks after, I shifted Hussain's family to their new house, admitted him and his cute naughty siblings to nearby school .Every month I pay for their rent, food, fee and bills. Nothing much is left behind for me but I've found the happiness that I always longed for.

Mystery in the hills It was a bright and beautiful Sunday morning on the hilly plains of the cool suburban town of Mampong. I awoke to the sounds of birds chirping and crickets creaking from the bushes surrounding my two-storey bungalow. As I opened my eyes and managed to crawl out of bed, I had only one agenda on my mind: to make it to church that morning. It neither mattered that my musculoskeletal system was in defiance to this religious routine of mine; nor that each movement was a reminder of the fatigue and soreness of my muscles and joints. I quickly took a glance at the samsung phone lying on my bedside table. Thankfully I had not been called to attend to any sick child or adult during the night. That was a first! Then why was I so tired this morning? I bent down to pick up my stethoscope from the floor and toppled over three feeding bottles, the last of them, half empty. The sound startled the 18 month old chocolate-skinned boy still sleeping in my bed. I quietly dragged myself to the bathroom. Washing down took longer than usual. My mind seemed to join my body in the protest. “Just stay home and rest!” it seemed to yell at me. Having been trained to always lay myself aside to care for my patients' needs first, my body was used to constantly being ignored. Today was clearly not going to be an exception. “Going to church?” My husband asked as I walked out of the bathroom. He had just returned from morning rounds on the hospital ward, a walking distance from our bungalow. “Yeah” I replied. “Coming along?” I asked. “No” he replied. “I am tired.” The drive to the capital city was 35 minutes. Getting dressed became an ordeal. I could not seem to settle on any particular attire. The one I finally chose ended up being burnt under the pressing iron. It was time to leave. I stooped into the still new black ASX SUV, a gift from my parents for graduating medical school in a foreign land, to ensure the Baby was strapped down. Strapping down, I said a miniature prayer. We took off. The first sight to greet us was the coffin craftsman with his various coffins on display infront of his grass thatched, bamboo- pillared shop, situated just opposite to the hospital entrance. Next we bypassed houses of different structure, shapes and sizes: some made with concrete mortar, others with clay. There were various goods for sale on display in front of many households; most of them farm produce. The most unusual thoughts run through my mind as I was driving on those smooth asphalt roads. The first was more of a suggestion as we bypassed one of the many churches in Mampong: “Why don't you stop here, and attend one of these churches in spite of driving all the way to Accra?” I found this thought odd. Why would I ever want to do that? To begin with, I hardly knew these people. Secondly, I was an ‘Actionite', meaning I was a member of Action Chapel International, a rather prestigious, charismatic church based in Ghana. Furthermore, I rarely got the opportunity to attend Sunday services these days. I put on the radio to bring my mind back from ‘overdrive'. There was some cool, soothing music that just did the trick. Shortly after that came the voice of Bishop T.D. Jakes blasting through the air waves. We bypassed a pack of children walking on the roadside, being directed by two or more adults. Beyond this point, we were almost in Accra. An erratically moving taxi cab upstream from us caught my eye. It charged straight into a four by four land cruiser about 900 feet from us, missing it by inches as both drivers swerved to avoid collision. The land cruiser sped off. Upon the sheer blink of my eye, I heard a very loud resounding CRASH, within inches of my very face, and felt a great, quick rotating force that turned me through an angle of 90 degrees in the horizontal plane. Then another ‘crash', equally forceful,behind me. Then I heard the most sinister cry of laughter ever! A second voice screamed: “I told you not to go! It is not time! There are many more things to be done, books to be written, stories to be told, many more things to be accomplished!” I blinked a few more times before I came to. Our SUV had been knocked off the road into a nearby ditch, next to a cemetery by that uncontrollably spinning taxi cab! I got down immediately at the thought of the baby. The windscreen of the taxi cab had been shattered into a million pieces, but surprisingly, frozen in place! I rushed to the other back side door realizing that the door behind me had was disfigured.I slipped on broken pieces of glass scattered on the floor and fell to the ground, my hands trembling as the gravity of the situation dawned on me. But we were safe, including the heavily intoxicated taxi driver! A few pieces of glass from the taxi's shattered windscreen being embedded in our chest and neck or the sheer force from the abrupt rotation of the vehicle ripping our aorta is all it would have taken to make this story end differently. Yet we were spared!