4:56am October 10, 2010

➸ Playing Cards at Boston Children's Hospital

I came so close to being one of the few people born with a significant physical disability to survive childhood intact. So breathtakingly close.

If only he had left three month earlier. If only we had better understood the system. If only my mother had not been ill. If only I had stood my ground.

For a long time afterwards, I accepted the view that it failed because I had not wanted it. That gave me some control over the situation. I wanted to believe I was the only one who had behaved badly. Gradually, though, I recognized what a rough and awful game we had been involved in.