Little by little, I started getting stronger.
Not all at once.
Just enough that one day the doctor decided I could finally leave the living room.
Now, don’t picture me racing through the house.
That wasn’t happening.
I still wasn’t allowed to run.
No climbing trees.
No bicycles.
No football.
No wrestling with the neighborhood kids.
Mom and the doctor still had a pretty impressive list of things I was not allowed to do.
Eventually…
I was released.
Not from the hospital.
I’d already done that.
I was finally released from the living room.
My new home was a bedroom on the first floor.
Now that…
… was a major upgrade. It was a big room. At least it seemed big to an eight-year-old boy.
My books moved in with me.
My favorite things.
For the first time in months, I had a room of my own again.
Years later I learned the family who lived there before us had used that room as their music room.
Who knew?
But none of that was the best part.
The bedroom opened onto a concrete patio and a screened porch.
I loved that porch.
I’d eat there.
I’d read there.
Sometimes I’d simply sit and listen.
The birds.
The breeze through the trees.
The distant sound of lawn mowers.
Kids playing somewhere in the neighborhood.
After months of hospitals and four living-room walls, it felt like the world had come back to life.
And little by little…
So had I. I still tired easily.
After months in a hospital bed and then on the couch, a short walk around the yard could leave me ready for a nap.
I wanted to run with the other kids.
My mind was ready.
My imagination was already halfway around the world.
But my heart…
And my body…
Were still recovering.
Rheumatic fever had a way of reminding me who was really in charge. Funny thing is…
If I’d been healthy, I probably would have spent every afternoon riding bikes, playing baseball, and trying to catch up with the other kids in the neighborhood.
Instead…
I found something even better.
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