Morning Walk

It’s surprising how many of my memories come from summer vacations. I must have been around 7 or 8 years old — cousins from all over the country had descended on our hometown, and the whole house was buzzing with that particular vacation chaos.

The excitement of the holidays, combined with the summer heat, meant we were all up and about at odd hours of the morning. The night before, everyone had agreed we’d set out early for a walk to a nearby farm, where a pump drew up cool water we could dip into.

We were all up by 6 am and out the door by 6:30, a little band of five or seven kids headed toward a farm about two to three kilometers away. Halfway there, my left knee started paining badly, badly enough that I couldn’t walk another step.

My elder sister was leading the group, she was, I think, the oldest among us. She stopped to look at my knee, which had already begun to swell and turn a deep purple. Without much fuss, she hoisted me onto her back and turned the whole group around.

By the time we got home, the pain was unbearable. My knee had doubled in size and gone an even deeper shade of purple. My parents pressed me for what had happened, but I couldn’t recall any injury that could explain it.

The next two months disappeared into a blur of doctors across different cities. It was eventually diagnosed as bone tuberculosis. A small surgery and two months of hospitalization later, I was finally home, though not before upending all our lives for a while.

There are memories tied to that surgery and the hospital stay that deserve their own telling. I’ll save those for another entry.

My sister has always loved me fondly, then and now. I’ve always wished I could return it the same way. I never quite seem able to.