Faith in healers

"What's an infection, Daddy?" Harry interrupted the bed time story. "How do you get an infection, Daddy?"

No prizes for guessing what was on his mind, but satisfied with my answers, he tucked himself back down again.

They're questions he has asked time and time again, and I always explain them as accurately as I can in six year old terms, but I can see he's struggling to understand why Mummy died because of her infection. Why, if doctors (real or make believe, like Emily with her new doctor's kit) are there to make people better with stethoscopes and medicine, did his mother not get better?

He is obviously not getting it to add up, but the only thing left for me to tell him is that the doctors (in his world this would include midwives as well) could have made Mummy better, but didn't recognise that she was ill until it was too late to save her.

I know that when the penny drops he will be angry. So, so angry. I won't be able to say he shouldn't be and it's going to be very painful for us all.

What will I say to them both if one of us gets even slightly ill? That the doctor will make us better? Will they believe me? Pretty unlikely, I would guess.

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