About Annie
Was born at RIE
Annie was born in the morning of November 16, 1989 at Simpson Memorial Maternity Pavilion. Annie’s portrait is taken in the courtyard of the apartment blocks number 3, 4 and 5 on Simpson Loan – location where the Maternity Pavilion used to be.
For obvious reasons, Annie does not have a memory of her first stay at the hospital. Instead, she shares a story about her sister, which still brings a smile to Annie’s family members today. Annie’s sister was 2.5 years old when Annie was born. When she visited her newborn sister, their parents said that the Annie had given her a gift – a toy tractor. Since then, every time she visited Annie, she was expecting to receive a gift.
Annie says that the location she was born in is still very significant to her – and she remembers this when she passes the former location of Simpsons while walking on the Meadows. However, during our conversation we also reflect on the hospital visits Annie had later in life. She shares that the hospitals she visited were always similar inside, they often seem pale and drained, yet so full of intense emotions. To her, any hospital building has the power to remind of the experience had in any other hospital. Annie shares her experience of hospital visits in her poem.
Instructions for visiting hours
It takes ten full years to master
the art of silence, a painstaking
apprenticeship conducted in waiting
rooms, bedrooms with square windows.
Let chatter heavy with inconsequence
rise into unasking quiet. Pray
to the nothing that is out there.
Sit. Wait. Do not be afraid.
Annie Rutherford
