Mick McKellar Update--Day +29
Medically, I have nothing new to report. My desensitization to Bactrim continues and my persistent cough...persists. I've spent most of today in an enveloping brown study, punctuated by the red flashes of my chest cough and the brutal duty to eat something. Not pleasant for me, unpleasant for Marian. Around here they just call it a bad day and everybody has them...it's part of the process.
Rochester's weather has not helped much with rain, fog, and chilly winds -- snow is in the forecast -- even some possible flooding on the south side of town.
A few Skype calls to friends has helped a bit, and Marian is writing some long-overdue thank you cards. I should be writing them myself, but my hands shake so badly (a side-effect of cyclosporin), I can barely sign my name, much less write a note or two.
Just like an old-time (disaster) movie...
I day dreamed a bit today and revisited some old time disasters that made me wonder how my mother survived our childhoods. These are just some of the hair-brained things I did. My siblings were just as creative (and sometimes bled even more).
I remembered pretending to be Superman and charging the back door of the kitchen, only to put my arm right through the glass. Lots of blood, no long term damage.
Then there was the day I was running across a pile of lumber in our backyard. Of course, I had been expressly forbidden from playing near it, because it was the remnants of a kennel my Dad was renovating, and much of the wood was still full of nails. Clumsy as always, and trying to prove to my younger siblings that I could play with them (I really could not), I roared up the mini-mountain of lumber. I made it to the top and tripped over my less than accommodating feet and fell onto the pile. Somehow, I managed drive a nail through the wrist of each hand (I still have the scars). I stumbled to the back door of the house, wood still nailed to my wrists, and cried out, "Mom! I've been crucified!"
My introduction to first grade school was no less terrifying for her. I came home with my school sweater (new) covered in blood. They had just built the school and had not finished the playgrounds. So the boys picked sides and had a brick fight -- throwing the bits and pieces of leftover facing brick they had tossed in a pile out back. I took a small cut on the scalp, but it bled like gangbusters. My Mom screamed at me for doing something so dangerous. My Dad, just shrugged and said boys will be boys, at least until he noticed that the sweater would have to be replaced...
Tamara
In the third grade, I met Tamara. She lived in a little brown house on the route I walked to school. She was quiet like me and kept to herself, like me. We became friends, being quiet and reading with and to each other. Tamara missed a lot of school. Occasionally, she would go to the teacher and cry uncontrollably. I asked if she was sick, and she said no, but that the burns hurt that day. With all the tact of a third grader, I asked what burns, and she rolled up her sleeves to show hundreds of little red welts on her arms. She said there were more on her back, but she couldn't say how she got burned.
She missed a couple of days of school again, and came to class with her right arm in a sling and a cast. Everyone wanted to know what happened, "Fell downstairs," was all she would say.
Finally, one afternoon, sitting behind the school, she started crying again and I asked if I could help. She said no one could help her. Her mom and dad told her she was a bad kid and would burn her with their cigarettes and even punch and hit her. She was scared now, because she had told her teacher all of this and her folks would be really mad. I asked again if I could help, but she just ran away.
I never saw Tamara again. Our teacher told us she had had a bad accident and died from the injuries. Her folks were both gone from home when it happened, and never came back. Tamara lives on in my memories however, and I often think of her on brown study days.
Maybe her memory was part of the reason I chose to work for Social Services and then Social Security after college. Our lives are shaped by how our friends and acquaintances face tragedy and challenge.
Thanks again for the e-mail stories and cards, letters, and other bits of home. Thank you for the prayers and good thoughts. Thank you for remembering along with me again tonight.
God bless you all,
Mick