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Excerpt From Chapter 4
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Gazing out at the state capitol building, now with Christmas lights up to the top of the dome, I thought of our other six children at home who also needed me. They were having to deal with this, too. Each day after they left for school, Buddy and I drove sixty-five miles to the hospital. I alternated spending a night with Alvin and a night at home. Doing everything I could seemed so inadequate. Sometimes I prayed silently in the cafeteria. Instead of thinking "Our dear and good Father in Heaven, thank you for ...", I'd just think "Help, God. Please help." I'd return my plate mostly untouched and go back to Alvin's room to wait.
A few times on the way, I paused to look at the winning art displayed in one hallway. It was artwork done by young patients, and there was information about a new contest. But you can't draw when you have no skin on your fingers. And how would Alvin's fingers be when they do have skin? Would he ever make another drawing? Or would the skateboard sketches be the last?
One day when they brought him back to his room with fresh bandages, he said his chest hurt so badly it felt like the nipples had been scrubbed completely off. As always, he was in unspeakable pain, even after taking the maximum amount of pain medication. I knew by now that sleep was the only relief, and sometimes it took a long, long while. It hurt him so much for so long that day. And there I was in Little Rock for the purpose of being there for my son, and I could do nothing. He turned his head one way and another, told me that it hurt. I couldn't even hug him or hold his hand without hurting him more. He had been brave through it all so far, and hadn't even complained. It took so long for sleep, and relief, to come that day. When finally he was resting, I tiptoed out of his room and into the hallway. I leaned up against the wall and just cried. I didn't even care that a lady from the staff came by and saw me. She stopped and talked to me, and she was kind, but words couldn't help Alvin.
Yet she knew what I didn't know. Another day the lady would return, and that day would change everything for Alvin and me.
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Know stuff. Read.
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