An unfortunate life

But Tom was not a normal person. Handed over to people in white gowns with a mask placed over his small face as the vomit-inducing ether, with its never-to-be-forgotten smell, was delivered into his small lungs, the experience permanently structured into his two-year old brain an irrational phobia for any medical treatment.

A few weeks before his passing, he made a comment to me which was uncharacteristic of him. He said: " I think that I have been unfortunate." I said nothing.

Touching reality

When I am consumed with my worries over what might just go wrong, I need to think of Tom - the person for whom a lot did go wrong. I need to visualise him being wheeled to school by one of his brothers in a homemade billy cart. I need to visualise him at the gate asking to be lifted out of the cart so that he could struggle through on his deformed legs to face another day of cruel barbs.

I know some who spend a significant amount of their time in a delusional world of 'poor me'. I know others who are obsessed with appearances and to whom the sight of a cripple engenders in them a revulsion - as if a pollutant had crossed their path. And, that was another burden Tom had to live with. He was aware that the sight of him made others dislike him.

As this cheerful and inspirational man finally admitted as his death drew near: his was an unfortunate life.

Footnote

In the second picture a joyful little boy is being entertained by a cat soon after his surgery (note the dump of a habitat). The mother is also feeling good. She is thinking that when the plaster comes off, her little boy will have normal legs. Over the next 40 years she suffered to a degree that only the parent of a severely handicapped child who may be reading this could understand.