Seizure

It was a fine sunny afternoon, when a kid was seen shivering in his sleep.
The parent was contacted and would come in a while, which turned out to be slightly longer than awhile. The kid's fever shot up so high, the teachers' sponging couldn't help. He started throwing up and had a seizure.

Children were watching, the teachers tried their best to help. None of us knew what exactly to do, except to hold him and call the parent again. One teacher started praying, out loud, in tongue (Christian thing), and it shook me to the core.

I knew it is normal for children to experience seizure, I knew he would be fine, but the prayers, it shocked me so much I was emotionally unstable to lead the children to class. Tears were shaking out and I was trembling with fear when my 3 year olds sang their song gleefully oblivious of what was happening... I told myself it's all going to be fine, some cry some pray when they panic, it's normal. And a minute later I calmed down and managed class like how a teacher should be *thank goodness*

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The boy's fine. Had dust allergy which led to middle ear infection that's why the fever shot up so high, and because we couldn't administer medication and the parent was running late, it couldn't be helped. But still it was a lesson for everyone. Especially learning from the doctor that we shouldn't put anything in the victim's mouth because s/he will not bite the tongue to death, instead stuffing spoon/cloth/toys/etc will suffocate.

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At the end of the day, I recollected what happened, and poked into the question of why I was so shaken by the prayer. After some thought I realized that in my culture, people pray when people pass away or are passing away. Unlike many Buddhist or Christians or whatever religious people's traditions, I don't pray. Except for that "Po pi peng an peng an gao tak chek" when I go to temples or on chengbeng, which I always remind myself to say it as sincere as I can without believing it will come true... I'm not a praying person. And the last time I prayed was when grandpa died, I prayed and chanted from my heart. 

So on that day, when a fellow colleague panicked and started praying, because it's a religious thing for that colleague, who prays after every single thing I know, my brain connected the scene to "death" without my conscious effort and it linked to "loss" and "fear" and "sadness" all so quickly (OK, you kinda have to picture brain neurotransmitters and schemas connected to each other to understand this explanation fully)...