“ It started with a rash – dark purple, unmistakable, terrifying. I knew what it meant. And I knew we didn’t have much time.
I thought I understood child mortality. I’d studied it, treated young patients. But nothing prepared me for what happened on a dusty road in southern Niger. That was the day our two-year-old daughter, Emily, died of meningococcemia.
Just the day before, she was laughing and jumping in a pool in Maradi. Then she was in my arms in the backseat of our car, having taken her last breath.
I tried CPR. We prayed. Drove faster.
That moment changed everything.
In Niger, at that time, nearly 30 per cent of children didn’t live to see their fifth birthday. I knew and worked with mothers who had buried their babies. But I didn’t truly understand their pain until I became one of them.
Our younger daughter, Bethany, caught the same infection, but she survived. Her life felt like a gift – and a message.
Since then, I’ve tried to live in a way that honours Emily. Her absence is with me every day. It has shaped me. It’s why I went into politics. Why I fight for fairness in health care. Why I believe love means keeping your heart open, so wide that it might break.
I can’t bring Emily back. But I can work for a world where no child dies because of where they were born.
That day on the road marked the beginning of a new vocation in my life. It was my turning point.
