I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

story. Like a disease of its own, it takes hold to whoever will listen.
In reality, Sam is just a boy. He was born naked and crying his lungs
out like all babies. His body was a bit small, his head was a bit large,
but he was nothing monstrous, nothing like what some made him out
to be.
His mother only held him once. She cared about him, I think,
however much you can care for someone you don’t want to know.
The doctors told her he would need constant care, medication,
therapies, and that he may not grow up to be like other children. She
spent the night on the edge of the cot, blood she refused to have
cleaned between her legs. Sitting there, she pulled the hem of her
dress over the red. She looked into the crib where her baby laid
wheezing. Her knuckles caressed his cheek and her lips laid a kiss
to his forehead long enough for a goodbye. She left before the sun
rose and no one ever saw her again.
By his second day of life, Sam was alone.
The reason he can’t play with the other children is simple. It is the
same reason he can’t interact with other patients except through a
glass partition. It is why all who come into his room must wear masks
and gloves.
Sam’s body can’t protect itself. It has no shields. A cold that would
pass in a week could kill him in a day.
The hospital is all he knows. It is all he can feel without something in
the way.
Sometimes, I gaze over while we play with his potted plants and
wonder if he’d rather be elsewhere. Sam’s fairy tales take place in
magical places, places far less clinical and repetitive. I ask him,
“Sam, do you want a castle? Do you want enchanted forests and
high seas like in your stories?”