I remember a window that looked out at other buildings, but not much else.
What I remember most was a nurse.
If memory serves me right, I think her name was Carol.
She was a pretty blonde lady who treated me like I was her own kid.
She was always asking how I felt and telling me what was going on. I liked that. Most of the adults talked to my parents. Carol always talked to me.
I slept a lot.
Looking back, I must have been pretty sick because every time I woke up it seemed like somebody wanted to give me another shot.
I hated those shots. They always had to go in my backside, and the medicine was cold.
Except when Carol was working. Before she gave me the shot, she'd quietly roll the syringe between her hands for a few seconds. I don't know if it really warmed the medicine very much.
But I knew why she was doing it.
Somehow... that mattered.
She also brought me pudding.
Chocolate was good.
Butterscotch was my favorite.
Whenever Carol walked through the door carrying pudding instead of a syringe...
...I knew it was going to be a pretty good day.
Eventually they told me I could go home.
I remember riding through long hospital hallways in a wheelchair.
The elevator.
Everyone being unusually careful with me.
As we made our way down the hallway, doctors and nurses smiled and called out goodbye.
Evidently...
I'd been there long enough to get to know all of them.
Dad's old station wagon was waiting outside. It was a huge grocery-getter of a car.
We only had one car back then, so Dad rode to work with a carpool every day. Mom needed the station wagon close by, just in case I had to go back to the hospital.
She had made a pallet across the back seat so I could lie down all the way home.
I remember Carol standing beside the car as we pulled away.
That's my last hospital memory.
---
Home wasn't exactly home anymore.
My bedroom was upstairs, and the doctor said climbing stairs wasn't allowed.
So for the next few months...
the living room became my whole world.
The couch became my bed.
A little table beside it held my food, my drinks, and whatever book I happened to be reading.
The television sat across the room.
Back then there were only a handful of channels, and of course there wasn't a remote control.
Whatever station somebody left it on...
...that's what I watched.
Mom also left me a metal drinking cup and a wooden spoon beside the couch.
Whenever I needed something and nobody was around...
I'd pick up the spoon.
Clang...
I'd wait a second.
Clang...
Still nothing.
Clang...
I never had to wait very long.
Almost immediately I'd hear the laughter stop in Mom's beauty shop.
Then everything would get quiet.
A few moments later I'd hear footsteps.
The beauty shop was right next to the living room, but there wasn't a door connecting the two. Whoever came had to leave the salon, walk through the remaining garage, across the breakfast room, through the kitchen, past the dining room, and finally down the hallway.
Then...
Around the corner she'd come.
One of Mom's Ladies.
Back then, women dressed up whenever they went somewhere.
Pretty dresses.
Nice shoes.
Freshly styled hair.
Perfume.
Hairspray.
Sometimes enough makeup that even as a little kid I wondered how long it had taken them to get ready.
They'd always walk over to my couch with a smile.
But before they asked what I needed...
Almost every one of them did exactly the same thing.
They'd run their fingers through my curly hair.
I loved that.
As a little boy, I never thought much about it.
I just knew it made me feel special.
Then they'd smile and ask,
"Well, Billy... what do you need today?"
Sometimes it was a drink.
Sometimes I'd dropped my book.
Sometimes I just wanted to see one of Mom's Ladies.
They almost never came empty-handed.
A slice of pie.
A piece of cake.
Maybe a cookie.
Every once in a while...
A candy bar.
Or even a Pepsi.
Neither one was approved by my doctor.
Or probably my mother.
Fortunately...
Mom's Ladies didn't seem overly concerned about either one.
Some of them even thought I ought to meet their daughters someday.
Looking back...
I guess I must have been a pretty cute little sick kid.
More than sixty years later...
I don't remember what most of those ladies looked like.
But I still remember how it felt when they smiled...
and gently ran their fingers through my curly hair.
---
Dad worked long hours.
Every evening I'd hear the bird dogs barking.
That meant Dad was home.
A few seconds later the back door would open.
Then his footsteps.
One room closer.
Then another.
Before I ever saw him...
I'd hear his voice.
"His name is Sweet William..."
A few more footsteps.
"...but we call him Billy Boy."
Every evening.
Without fail.
I smiled every single time.
That was Dad's way of saying,
"I'm home."
---
Every weekday another visitor pulled into the driveway.
Her name was Mrs. Faunch.
She came to keep me caught up while everyone else was in third grade.
We worked on math.
Science.
Social studies.
I survived those.
The books were different.
She noticed pretty quickly what I loved.
Adventure.
Mystery.
Science fiction.
From that day on, she never came without another book tucked under her arm.
Jules Verne quickly became one of my favorite authors.
As soon as I finished one adventure, she'd bring another.
If the weekend was coming, she'd make sure I had enough books to last until Monday.
Then one day she handed me The Hobbit.
I don't think she had any idea what she was placing in my hands.
Neither did I.
I don't know how many times I read that book.
I loved everything about it.
The Shire.
The mountains.
The forests.
The adventure.
But more than anything...
I loved Gandalf.
He was wise.
Mysterious.
He always seemed to know more than everyone else.
And even though Bilbo didn't realize it at first...
Gandalf believed in him.
Long before I ever wandered very far from our house...
I'd already traveled twenty thousand leagues under the sea with Captain Nemo...
around the world in eighty days with Phileas Fogg...
and across Middle-earth with Bilbo Baggins.
My body was stuck on that couch.
But every page I turned became another journey... another adventure... taking my imagination to places I'd never been before.
