Revised 1st Semester Essay

When I was seven, I was seriously ill. It started with my legs first. Tiny red dots sprinkled liberally on my ankles, inching up to the knee caps. It was a pointillism painting on my skin, and my mother couldn’t read it at all. She furrowed her eyebrows at my explanation that her freckles were contagious. She took me to the hospital when the icy green of winter was thawing into spring, where the walls were eternally pea-green soup frosted slick. I studied them intently in boredom as I sat in the waiting room, not knowing just how familiar they would become. The doctors ordered tests, smiled brightly at me, and told me that I would be out in no time. Indeed, time in the hospital follows no rules of the universe. It is a limbo outside of a bustling world. At first, I thought it fun, lying on a bed all day, exempt from the bustle of outside life. Then it got to be monotonous, having resting all the time, always being warned to be careful. And the faces of the regulars were always guarded and strained.
Though I didn’t realize it, this was a purgatory of sorts, where the soul was purged not of sins but of disease. And with both Dante’s and modern civilization’s creation, both were characterized by the unknown. Why was this happening? I was fairly healthy before. Maybe too fond of junk food but not a sickly child. And I wasn’t a very bad person in my opinion. On the whole, I thought I was too interesting to be cooped up in a building with needles constantly jabbed in me when I could be proving to the world my talents. So if it wasn’t really my fault, then why was I here? It didn’t make any sense to be here with the other pale children.
A child of seven isn’t really aware of death. Injections, spinal taps and pills were nuisances, not life lines. I wanted to know why I couldn’t handle community books, or go outside to see the roses bloom in summer. But you’re not completely unchanged. You would have bedmates that would help you make a Lego castle, and the next day, their beds would be empty, the sheets folded into a small, neat roll at the foot of their bed. You’re aware that your condition hurts your family, though you’re not exactly sure why. While I lay there, in boredom, aware of my parents hurt, aware that my life meant so much to them, I slowly formed a few resolutions, for when I got out of limbo. I wanted to get better, for them. For myself. There was a rose garden in the hospital grounds on the seventh floor, a hanging Eden of sorts that bloomed through the two wintry springs that I stayed there. I was rarely allowed to go and look, much less pick a flower to bring back. If I got better, I promised myself. I’ll grow my own rose garden and pick them all. Fill the house to bursting of pink and red blooms. That was something simple to do. Easy and simple things in health: walking down to the grocery store to buy an ice-cream. Petting a stray cat. Things that weren’t all that unusual in the past were now something to aspire to, to hope for.
I did get better eventually. Now real life presses in my head far more than the simple things of life. Studies hover like a bad dream, textbooks need to be read and colleges have to be wooed. But still. When things get too pressing, one has to put things in perspective. Yes, there’s a lot at stake for the future in terms of preparation, but at least one still has health. The ability to enjoy a summer’s walk. To breathe in crisp autumn air on the way to school. Robert Herrick probably encapsulates it best with his poem “To the Virgins, to make much of time.” To “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may…”. Life is precious, and it is short as a rose bloom. Herrick, writing the poem during a turbulent time of war and tension, knew about life’s inherent chaos. Life isn’t always fair. Hence war, hence disease. But Herrick also knew of the importance of the good, simple pleasures of life. How they can make life worthwhile, despite their transience. Hence, one should live life to the utmost. For “The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, the higher he’s a-getting, the sooner will his race be run, and nearer he’s to setting.”