{"id":832,"date":"2014-10-12T13:10:28","date_gmt":"2014-10-12T13:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/how-to-write-a-memoir.com\/?p=832"},"modified":"2014-10-12T14:21:24","modified_gmt":"2014-10-12T14:21:24","slug":"wasting-away-a-memoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/how-to-write-a-memoir.com\/?p=832","title":{"rendered":"Lesson 4: Wasting Away \u2013 A Memoir"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wasting Away<\/strong><\/p>\n

A desperately ill child\u2019s reflections of sounds and smells from the confines of his bedroom as he struggles with the fear of dying.<\/em><\/p>\n

I lay on the floor on my back staring blankly at the ceiling. The threadbare rug was no help against the warped floor planks but it was better, no lower, than my bed. I could not stand or sit without vomiting and lying on my bed was too high and brought on nausea. If my grandfather\u2019s grave was open I would have climbed in.<\/p>\n

I remained there listening to my mother cutting material on the dining room table next door. The sound of the scissors on the wood formed a comforting rhythm and I felt calm now. The sound stopped and my mother opened the door to see how I was feeling.<\/p>\n

\u201cMichael, what are you doing on the floor?\u201d she said as she hurried to me. \u201cGet yourself back to bed this minute. What will the doctor think of us? You on the floor and all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMom, I can\u2019t, my bed is too high, I\u2019ll be sick.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the first time since I was found in a hole at school and brought home she had a good long look at me. I saw the expression in her eyes change; she looked scared which frightened me.<\/p>\n

\u201cMom, am I dying like Pop? Did he also want to vomit all the time?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow don\u2019t you be talking that way child! Your grandfather was old and died of cancer of his blood.\u201d She wanted to help me up but the moment I sat I began retching. She laid me back down and rushed off to fetch the enamel bucket, the one that was always used when we were sick. It had chips now.<\/p>\n

With the bucket next to the bed I hung over the side to get my head lower. This is how the doctor found me. He examined me as best he could between my retching spells; I had nothing left to vomit. When finished he lay me back down with my head over the side of the bed and left with my mother to the dining room. I could not hear what he told her but when he left my mother came back in and told me that I was very sick and that I must stay in bed.<\/p>\n

Later that evening when my mother was cooking, the smell of fried sausage caused me to vomit violently. Bangers and Mash for supper was not on my menu! I could only manage one small non-salted cracker and a sip of water. Little did I know at that time but this was to become my diet for the next three weeks. I could not stand the smell of normal food, it just made me vomit.<\/p>\n

After dinner, all the family came in see me. They were all amused as they looked at me. Eventually my mother chased them all out and sat on the bed next to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have Yellow Jaundice the doctor said. It has made you very yellow, especially your eyes,\u201d she said brushing my hair back with her rough hand. \u201cYou\u2019ll be in here for a while yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAm I dying?\u201d I asked. \u201cI\u2019m not ready, I\u2019m only twelve,\u201d I pleaded with her.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnough of that then,\u201d she said smiling, \u201conly the good die young.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was not convinced.<\/p>\n

Later that night a ghastly storm struck. The wind caused the branches of the tree outside my window to scrape with eerie screeches on the gutter and roof. It howled with ghostly fluttering sounds down the chimney.<\/p>\n

I lay flat on my back thinking that death had come to get me.<\/p>\n

Suddenly the entire room shook. The mine siren whined out its call for the rock-fall. This happened often in the past but that first night terrified me; the ground is going to open up and take me because I\u2019m dead.<\/p>\n

This was the first of many frightening nights. For three weeks I endured the lack of food and the ranting and ravings of the wind and ground. I was lonely!<\/p>\n

At the end of it all I was a skeleton of a boy with a resolve to live and face everything life and the world had to offer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wasting Away A desperately ill child\u2019s reflections of sounds and smells from the confines of his bedroom as he struggles with the fear of dying. I lay on the floor on my back staring blankly at the ceiling. The threadbare … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lesson-4"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/how-to-write-a-memoir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/how-to-write-a-memoir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/how-to-write-a-memoir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/how-to-write-a-memoir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/how-to-write-a-memoir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=832"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/how-to-write-a-memoir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":840,"href":"https:\/\/how-to-write-a-memoir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions\/840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/how-to-write-a-memoir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/how-to-write-a-memoir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/how-to-write-a-memoir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}