By Faye Wright

I am five years old. Sent home from school, I am lying in my mother’s bed. Aching all over, with a high fever, barely able to swallow when a doctor is called. The doctor thinks I may have polio and suggests my single working mother admit me into the hospital. My mother, defiant, is arguing I do not have polio, and I surely will get it in the hospital Polio Ward. 

It was around Christmas; I had drawn a classmate’s name to give a Christmas present. As the doctor and my mother continue to argue, I fret about how I will deliver my present of a Life Savers StoryBook to my classmate. Although I wanted the Life Savers, I had selected them for the classmate whose name I had drawn. The next thing I remember is riding in the back of an ambulance on the way to my grandparents’ home 3 hours away. 

I look back now and see many boxes ticked – my mother’s fear, denial and defensiveness, my feelings of responsibility and fretting. I wonder how willing my elderly grandparents were to change their comfortable, settled life by taking care of an ill child. If I had polio, could they be infected? If I did have polio, how would they manage me physically? What if I couldn’t walk or even move? How long would I be sick? The only memory I have of the time is discovering the chimney had been boarded up from the inside to keep the chilly wind out. How was Santa Claus coming down the chimney? After much questioning how Santa was going to get in, my grandparents decided to wear a sweater and open the chimney was an answer a five-year-old would understand. It was. When the boards were removed, and I saw all the bird nests, dirt and soot fall into the grate I wondered if Santa wouldn’t get terribly dirty coming down the chimney. Something told me I shouldn’t mention being worried about that. I do not remember what happened to the Life Saver Storybook gift. Christmas Eve did arrive, Santa made it down the chimney and I recovered enough to return to school after New Years.

Fortunately, I did not have polio, and managed not to contract it by the time I was ten, when a sugar cube vaccine became available. My favorite gift to give (and receive) at Christmas remains a Life Savers StoryBook. 

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Faye Wright is a retired IT consultant. She is now pursuing her passion for writing. She is a regular participant in the Iowa Writers Summer Festival program. Daily grateful to complete a first draft, continually edit and still not be finished.