Epiphany 2

Epiphany #2

There was no Kindergarten when I was a child but I was duly enrolled in first grade at the ripe old age of four. My birthday fell on December 28^th and somehow I slipped into first grade without anyone noticing that I was underage. Once more I loved my infant school and I loved my teacher. My teacher’s name was Miss Donnen and she was plump and pretty.

One day the headmistress came into our classroom to announce that Miss Donnen had died. A polio epidemic had swept through town and she was gone forever. It was a child’s moment of awakening, the discovery that a person who was loved could actually die and I missed her a lot. There was no such thing as grief counseling in those days, just the plain cold facts. Your teacher is dead, end of story.

A few years later another polio epidemic swept through town right before the polio vaccine became available. I lost my best friend who was crippled first and then she died when I was at grade school. A few other girls in my class died (it was an all girl grade school), just as the authorities were rushing a shipment of polio vaccine to the public park where the schoolchildren had started to assemble. Our mothers were waiting for us at one of the park buildings and the atmosphere was one of fear mixed with relief that the vaccine had finally arrived. We lined up for our lumps of sugar dosed with vaccine and then walked home in silence.

 I'm not sure how old I was in this photo but it was taken at school when I was quite young.

1956 when I was ten years old. This is my class at grade school, I'm in the back row 5th from the right.

We had an outbreak of tuberculosis next and although they survived, my aunt and one of my cousins contracted the disease. Our whole family was ordered to make our way to the local infirmary where we were all given a TB test. I was the only one who tested positive and had to endure the rather painful tuberculosis vaccination. Did I have a case of TB? I have no idea but since that time I always test positive for TB because of that vaccination.

The epiphany connected to these events came when I was fifty seven years old. One day I realized that even after half a century, I had not forgotten the polio victims or my beloved teacher. They were still loved and remembered. I was still carrying precious memories of them and I can still remember what they looked like. In that moment when I was age fifty seven, I understood that the essence of a person truly lives on in spite of the passage of time. I felt as if they were still alive and somehow I had drifted into their dimension. Was it a trick of the mind? I don’t know but I’m glad it happened.