Читать книгу The Baby’s Cross: A Tuberculosis Survivor’s Memoir - C. Gale Perkins - Страница 11

The Baby’s Cross

I look out of my bed through big brown eyes framed by my pitch black hair. My tiny body is encased in a plaster cast from my neck to my knees as I lie on my stomach, perched on my elbows. This is the view of the world that I will experience for the next twelve years.

Did I say bed? It was a metal crib with bars on all sides. I was tied in this crib with an apron strap, which had four ties on each side tied to the side bars of the crib and two ties that tied around my neck and then to the front bars of the crib. I could not get out if I wanted to, only four years old, unable to run and play. The look on my face was one of determination, telling the world that I could tackle anything that was to come.

You could see in my large brown eyes the questions that were deep in my heart. How did I get here? What happened to me? Why was I unable to run and play like other children? Why isn’t my mother here? I really need her here with me. The plaster cast was so heavy; my elbows chafed from rubbing against the sheets.

I would have a visitor each month; a tall thin lady, she was my aunty Eunice, my mother’s sister. I asked her where my mother was and she said, “She is very sick.” Aunty Eunice said that she would visit my mother following her visits with me and would tell her all about me. She told me I had Mom’s big brown eyes and her sweet singing voice. She was like a messenger who would bring good news back and forth. I asked her if she would bring Mom someday when she got better. She promised she would. She would give me a big hug and when she would leave I would cry. I missed her when she left. She was so nice and smelled so good and would make me laugh, but most of all it was her hugs. I couldn’t feel them too much on top of the plaster but I knew they would feel good.

The answer to all the questions that were in my mind were somewhat answered in the poem which is the title of my book, “The Baby’s Cross,” written by my mom. The poem was written after one of the visits to me and then to my mom from Aunty Eunice, who had brought the message to her along with the picture.