Blog #11 - Words from the Birth Room - Roses and the Masks we wear.
Roses.
I’ve always loved flowers, but roses hold a special place for me now.
It wasn’t always this way.
As a young girl, I thought roses were for a particular set of people
elegant women in long dresses, romantic movie scenes, grand gestures
grand gestures I didn’t quite relate to.
⸻
Then I dated the right person
the man who became the husband of my youth,
and everything changed.
He bought me flowers, often without a reason,
simply because he thought of me.
And over time,
I began to appreciate the thought behind them
as much as the flowers themselves.
⸻
This week, I found myself buying roses for someone else,
a colleague, an obstetric doctor I work with in the birth room.
She is one of those rare people who can light up your day without trying.
She calls me her ‘African sista’ ,
and we’ve shared countless moments of laughter and inside jokes between shifts.
She’s the kind of person who seems to carry joy in her pocket,
handing it out freely to anyone who needs it.
⸻
But a few days ago,
she shared something with me that stopped me in my tracks.
It was soul-wrenching news, personal, heavy, deeply painful.
The kind of thing you wouldn’t wish on anyone.
And as she spoke,
I realised there was no way I could have guessed she was carrying this weight.
⸻
You see, she always seemed strong,
put together, competent, in control.
I’d never stopped to ask if she was truly okay.
We joked, we hugged, we shared moments,
but I never looked beyond the mask she wore.
That’s the thing about masks:
some people wear them so well, you forget they’re there.
And sometimes,
we want to believe someone is fine
because it’s easier than imagining the pain they might be hiding.
⸻
When she finished speaking,
I felt a tear escape down my cheek.
I hugged her long and tight
the kind of hug that says, You are not alone.
Then I gave her roses,
because sometimes words fall short,
and we need symbols to do the speaking for us.
⸻
It got me thinking:
Why do we find it so hard to drop the mask of being strong?
For women, maybe it’s because we’ve been told
that strength is what holds families, workplaces, and friendships together.
For men, maybe it’s because vulnerability
is still so often mistaken for weakness.
⸻
But real strength isn’t in pretending we’re fine.
It’s in allowing someone to see the cracks.
It’s in making space for honesty,
even when it’s messy.
It’s in asking—
and meaning—
those three small words:
Are you okay?
⸻
This week, I’m carrying one lesson from the birth room into the rest of life:
We can’t always fix someone’s pain,
but we can always make sure they don’t face it alone.
Sometimes it’s a hug.
Sometimes it’s a question.
Sometimes it’s a prayer.
And sometimes, it’s roses.
⸻
Whose mask have you never looked behind?
And is it time to let someone see behind yours?
#flowers #wordsfromthebirthroom #musings #sisterhoodsupport