Reclaiming Narratives: Ramblings in the Hospital Waiting Room

My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together | Desmond Tutu

Six hours. Six torturously slow hours, thick with the sterile scent of antiseptic and the steady hum of fluorescent lights, each tick of the clock heightening my worry. I was just one of many, swallowed up by the discomfort of it all when, unexpectedly, I found myself sharing stories with a stranger who suddenly felt like an old friend.

Across from me sat a fiercely proud Black woman with Caribbean roots, born and raised in the UK. Her wisdom and resilience were etched into every line on her face.

As we spoke, the walls of that hospital waiting room faded away, and we became just two women, two souls, swapping stories and sharing pieces of ourselves.

I told her about my own history—a piece of a distant world across the ocean, from a time and place that felt like a lifetime ago. I was an Indian woman, raised in apartheid South Africa, during an era when the colour of your skin dictated the spaces you could occupy.

I told her what it was like to be marked by something as arbitrary as skin colour, to carry an identity the world decided should be kept apart.

She listened with a gaze both sharp and thoughtful. “You’re the first South African I’ve ever met,” she said, almost in disbelief. A hint of frustration laced her voice as she admitted, “I always thought apartheid was just a Black-and-white issue.”

Ah, the media, ever eager to craft a sensational story. They packaged apartheid into something black-and-white, leaving the rest of us out of the narrative.

It was a tale with blinders on—a story simplified and sanitised, one that ignored the full, brutal depth of what apartheid truly was.

That’s the thing about stories, isn’t it? They can be narrow and biased, telling only what they want you to see. But the truth was so much bigger; apartheid was a brutal, layered beast, devouring anyone it deemed “other.”

We talked about how these polished narratives—packaged and sold to the world—often do more harm than good, moulding misunderstandings and leaving us with partial truths.

We were both caught in these fragmented stories, but in that waiting room, we reclaimed our truths, stitching together the pieces that had been scattered.

She then opened up about her world—a Black woman raised in the UK, constantly confronting the sharp sting of racism and the ever-present weight of being seen as “different.”

Then, with a heaviness I could almost touch, she recounted memories of the New Cross Fire tragedy. It was the second time in weeks that I’d come face to face with this heartbreaking event. It felt like more than just a story; it was a wound that still ached.

To her, the fire wasn’t just an accident; it was a manifestation of this otherness—a stark reminder that, for many, life wasn’t valued equally.

She had been only eight years old, but that memory carried the weight of a thousand unspoken fears.

It was as though it had held her captive, a constant reminder that her safety—and her very existence—wasn’t valued equally. She had been a child, yet she remembered the shock, the grief, the haunting reality that safety was a privilege beyond reach for so many.

As she spoke, I saw the intensity of that memory flicker in her eyes. It struck me again: that feeling of “otherness”—the sense of being an outsider in a place you’re meant to call home—is a universal experience. We discussed how these divides are etched into the places we call home, sometimes loud and overt, other times subtle yet equally corrosive.

With every word, I could feel the same scars running through her story, the same fears, the same resilience.

June Sarpong OBE words echoed in my mind: “Every person you meet has a part of the story that you don’t know.”

I shared what it was like for me, growing up on the other side of the world, while she shared her experience as a Black woman in Britain.

As we sat there in that waiting room—two women from different worlds—it felt like we were standing on common ground. Within each of us lay a history that had marked us, legacies that shape not only how we view the world but also how the world views us.

Though we hadn’t walked in each other’s shoes, we could see ourselves in each other’s stories.

Our journeys were bound by threads of struggle and survival, each of us navigating worlds that demanded we justify our existence, adapt, and prove our right to belong!

Then she posed a question that left me utterly speechless—a rarity for anyone who knows me:

“Do you think growing up during apartheid was worse than the everyday racism I face here in the UK?”

Wow—what a question. It hit me like a ton of bricks. How do you even begin to answer that? How can you possibly compare these experiences? It’s like trying to measure pain with a yardstick. Whether it’s state-enforced or subtly ingrained in everyday life, how can one be deemed heavier than the other?

She reflected that, in a way, she felt fortunate, having been raised in Britain, a place that seemed to offer a different kind of privilege compared to apartheid-era South Africa. I told her that while the forms of oppression differed, both were woven from the same fabric of dehumanisation.

The sting of being cast aside, of feeling lesser, leaves scars that look eerily similar.

We both knew what it was to survive, to carve out a place in a world that wasn’t built for us.

And isn’t that what it’s all about? Celebrating the stories that make us who we are, learning from one another, and embracing the beautiful messiness of our lives?

We might come from different places, and we may not know exactly what each other has faced, but those scars look the same, don’t they?

We left that waiting room as strangers, but for those few moments, we’d been something much more. We’d been two women sharing a piece of the world, holding space for each other’s stories, and, in a way, feeling a little less alone while finding strength in the narratives that make us who we are.

And sometimes, that is enough.

P.S. What your story?

#ReclaimingNarratives #BlackHistoryMonth #ThisIsMyStory #WhatIsYourStory