A 12-year-old Typhoid Mary

It was February. She was eleven years old and diagnosed with mononucleosis. Three months in bed - 24/7 including meals - allowed up only to attend to bodily functions. Each Friday her Teacher would take a week's worth of work to Dad, at his office, and he would bring it home. By Wednesday she would have finished it all. Friday morning Dad would take it to work and give it to Teacher in exchange for the next week's assignments. After the first month Dad suggested Teacher might consider adding work to the list, to help with Daughter's boredom, but instead of extra classwork, Teacher assigned books from the school library for Daughter to read and then write reports - 300 to 500 words. Three books added only an extra day of work, and the writing came naturally to her, so day four was taken care of, but Teacher soon decided her already crammed full schedule just didn't allow time for those reports, and so that little learning adventure ended at week three.

Enter to the scene the local Librarian. A woman who not only lived on their same street, but also was passionate about her job - she saw it as a calling! For the rest of Daughter's confinement, Librarian delivered a book a day, on her way home from work.

Daughter raised her reading level four grades in three months. In May, she was allowed to go to school for half a day, but had to go to bed immediately upon returning home. School let out for the summer. She was allowed to sit on the sofa in the den for a half day, to read more books, and then for an hour each day Mama taught her fractions, so she would be ahead of things when she finally went back to school. But the rest of the time she was in bed.

After six months she was allowed to return to "normal" life. But there was no normal for her. Kids at school stayed away from her, having been warned about contagion, and nothing could convince them she was not a threat. You think being accused of having cooties is bad? Try being a 12-year-old Typhoid Mary!

She learned to live with the isolation. And books continued to be her world. The hero Librarian would keep back newly arrived books, reserved with her name on them, and wait for the now-regular-as-clockwork-weekly-appearance in the old shaded building on the north side of 1st Avenue.

The bout with mono, otherwise known as "kissing disease" had another, much darker effect on her life - and her family - as ugly rumors spread about how she had contracted the disease. As a result, the family left their home Church.She went along with the explanation that the family needed to find a church closer to their house, one that didn't require an hour's travel each way. It was 20 years before Dad told her the real reason - the well-intentioned-but-less-than-well-informed pastor at the old church had made some ugly comments to Dad, and rather than continue in a congregation where his reputation was questioned, they left not only the church but the denomination.

It's a good thing social services didn't exist back then - Daughter would have wound up either a foster kid or living at the Mercy Home.

Six months into her isolation, Dad brought home a little iron lion. He'd gotten it in trade from one of his insurance clients who couldn't pay their policy premium that month. It sat on her nightstand, and she would talk to it during her hours of isolation. It didn't talk back, but she had an active imagination and nothing but time on her hands, so there were endless conversations in her head - especially after sundown when there were no lights allowed on in her room.

She had been eleven years old when Sissy married. Sonny was already married, and Eddie was away at boarding school. Nobody put it together that her symptoms occurred within weeks of the wedding. At the very church that accused Dad of not being a good man. Sadness was a way of life for him, but he didn't let it get him down. God and Dad and Mom and Daughter knew the truth - nobody else mattered.