Sara Bell

I see a blue bookmark with a small yellow star...

I see a blue bookmark with a small yellow star in the bottom left corner and I am instantly transported back to 1985.

My younger brother is battling these crazy ear infections causing dangerously high fevers; fevers scary enough for the whole family to put coats on over pajamas in the middle of the night and drive to the hospital.
An ear infection became so bad that when he was five years old, he developed Bell's Palsy.
Bell's Palsy is a condition that causes the muscles on one side of your face become weak or paralyzed.
It's caused by some kind of trauma to the facial nerve.

I would have been 7 at the time and all I can really remember about him in that state was that he smiled only on one side and tears came out only one eye. He was in the hospital for what I remember as being a week and I stayed with the neighbors which I was happy about. Sleep overs with Stephanie and Marla were my favorite thing - and on a school night - what a treat!

What I remember most vividly, and where this bookmark has transported me now is meeting Sara. She was a little girl in the same ward of the IWK as my brother. Sara was so tiny and frail. She walked with tiny crutches that attached to her wrists and a big bright smile. She was my brothers age and the size of a two-year-old. Her skin was pale, and her light thin hair curled around her face. Sara always wanted me to read to her when I was there. I think we read every children's book in that hospital.
I cried when my poor brother was discharged because I would no longer see Sara.

When I flip this bookmark over I see it is from Sick Kids and all I wonder at this moment what ever became of Sara. As a child myself, all I knew was that she was sick. What struck me then and what warms my heart even now is how happy she was. How could a child so sick be so happy? There is a lesson here.

I also wonder if this was when I realized books were therapy.


**I call my mother now and she tells me she remembers her too. I ask if she remembers what her condition was and she tells me Sara had severe Spina Bifida where a portion of her spinal cord had failed to close causing her difficulty walking and digesting food.