CHAPTER 1 The Day It Came
On one more, in a string of sunny summer days, a very precocious four-year old, named Ann, was playing a game of tag with her two-year old brother, Mark. They were running in circles around a newly staked ash sapling in the middle of a beautiful green lawn in their backyard. Their fit, freckled, sandy-blond haired father pushed his manual lawnmower over the large newly-fenced half-acre patch of green.The mower itself had a barrel-shaped wheel that turned as it was pushed with a long t-shaped handle that extended at an angle off the barrel. Both children liked to watch the drum spin and spit out little blades of grass into the air and collect into an open canvas sack attached by a hook, to both the long handle and the barrel. Every few passes, their father would stop to empty the sack over the new back fence. Nowadays, that masterpiece of lawn engineering would be obsolete. Their father, Patrick, always liked to mow his newly established lawn in neat rows, going perpendicular, and slightly overlapping every other strip of green grass. When he was finished mowing, little Ann thought the lawn looked like a gigantic, striped green blanket. He was very proud of his new lawn, and his new tract home in a modern suburb, just fifty-seven miles south of San Francisco. He was even prouder of his pretty chestnut-haired, freckle-faced wife and his two perfect children. So very much had changed in the last ten years of his life, from World War II interment to a happy marriage and new life, and he was glad.
After his fourth pass on the lawn, he stopped mowing and joined the game of tag with his children. It was a hot California summer day, and time for a break. Fresh giggles ensued as daddy had upped the game of tag for Ann and Mark. After a few minutes, he returned again to his mowing, and both children sat down to rest. Within minutes, the boy was up and running again, eager to resume play. Little Ann had leaned against the new tree stakes, and remained seated with her legs straight out in front of her. She tried to sit the new “Indian-style” way, but her legs would not cooperate or bend. Her brother kept pestering her to play again, but when she tried as hard as she could, she was unable to stand up or move her legs. She decided she just needed a little more rest. Leaning against the sapling, she let her brother run in circles around her. Then, all of a sudden, her head began to ache and it hurt to turn her head towards Mark’s antics. She surprisingly felt very dizzy and then laid down. Her head ached something awful, so she began to cry in quiet sobs.
On his next pass mowing, her father noticed Ann wasn’t playing anymore, so he stopped and bent down to ask her why she wasn’t playing—did she need a nap, a drink of water? She answered,“Daddy, I can’t move my legs at all, only my hands, and my head really hurts!” Patrick felt her forehead and told his daughter to stay still for a moment until he could return. Pat left his mowing undone, immediately scooped up his son, and ran into the house.
Alone, small and afraid Ann lay, wondering why her world had become so still. She looked up to the clear cerulean sky and noticed small birds were flying and moving in unison, back and forth, up and down, and wanted to ask her daddy what it meant when the birds did that. She had never seen anything like that before. She learned, much later in life, this phenomenon was called a “murmuration.” At four, Ann was always full of questions–and her dad said her favorite words were “why,” “what for” or “what’s that.” She told herself she must remember to ask daddy when he returned about the funny way the birds were flying. Even though she was curious almost all the time; she was not ever naughty like her little brother. When Mark was curious, he just touched or broke something, he never asked questions first. Ann really liked being an older sister, and tried not to be a bother. Ann always offered to help her mother with her baby brother and this new inability to move was just baffling to her. So, she simply laid still, surrendered to her paralysis, and waited for her daddy to return. She just knew daddy could fix her problem. It seemed like it took him a very long time to return that afternoon. By then, the birds had retreated and she completely forgot about her question regarding their unusual movement.
Eventually, her daddy came back and very gently picked her up and carried her into the house. He placed her flat on her back on the new mohair davenport, tucking a pillow on the edge of the cushion to secure her in place. Within a few minutes, she was surprised that her buddy, and the family doctor, Dr. Orr, arrived and began to examine her. She was very shocked to see him out of his office, since the doctor had never come to their house before! So, of course, Ann asked,”Why are you at my house and not in your office?" He answered, “I am going to try to see why you can’t move your arms and legs, OK?” He examined her and then asked her a few questions, while both her parents hovered, looked worried, and were unusually quiet. This was a concern for Ann, since she did not like to be a burden, especially since mommy had started crying. Dr. Orr poked and prodded at Ann almost everywhere, and then declared she needed to go to the hospital in an ambulance. Dr. Orr got up to leave and said he would see Ann later in the day, at the hospital. The little girl had seen a firetruck, only once before, but she had never seen an ambulance. She asked her daddy, “What is an ambulance?” Very soon thereafter a long, very tall and long, white car arrived on her street, with red lights on top, going round and round, and it had loud sirens blaring. It pulled into her driveway and two men, all dressed in white, even their shoes, and wearing face masks, emerged. They came into her house and brought a funny looking thing called a “stretcher.” They carefully strapped Ann into the long stretcher with four thick leather straps to hold her still, and the two men carried her, while she was strapped onto the stretcher, into the back of the big white ambulance. The ambulance had a huge back door that opened to one side and she was placed in the far back of the vehicle behind the driver. Her mother and father asked to come with her, but the two men told them they could not. Her mother started crying and hugged her father. Mark was already in her father’s arms and very excited by all the commotion of the ambulance Mark, nor Ann, clearly had no idea what was happening.
The little girl was very frightened, and she began to cry, too, sitting in that big, long white car with two strange men dressed in white. The noise of the ambulance scared her, and the ride was too bumpy by far. She wanted her mommy and daddy to go with her. Little did she know that it would be over two full years before she saw her home, her toys, her brother, or her parents again.