I was in the fourth grade, the youngest boy in my class. It had something to do
with my birthday. I was nine, and everyone else, except one girl, was already ten. Sister Mary Robert told us we were all going on a field trip to Mary Lou Blackburn’s house. She had leukemia and couldn’t come to school, so we were all going to her house to visit her. Sister said it was a corporal work of mercy. I didn’t know what leukemia was, but I knew it was worse than having measles or chicken pox. I had both of them, and after a little while I got better and went back to school. We never had a field trip to visit anybody with measles or chicken pox, so I knew leukemia was worse. We walked in a line down the sidewalk. Mary Lou lived two blocks from school. I passed by her house every day on my way home, and I wondered if she was getting better and would come back to school soon. Before she got sick, we walked home from school together. Sometimes, I told her a joke, and she laughed, and if there was a mean dog, I held her hand until it passed by. When we got to Mary Lou’s house, Sister stood by the front door and let us go in one at a time. I was surprised to see Mary Lou’s bed. It had wheels and was right in the middle of the living room. She was sitting up in it, and she looked at me when I came in. I looked back at her and told her I was sorry she was sick. She smiled at me when I told her that. Her lips were blue. They were never blue before. I asked her why they were blue, but before she could answer, Sister grabbed my shirt, pulled me away and called Josephine to come in for her visit. I thought about Mary Lou’s blue lips for a long time. After she died, when I walked by her house, I always looked at it and wished she still lived there.
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Leon KortenkampLeon Kortenkamp is a San Francisco Bay Area writer and artist who lives with his wife, Ginny, in Belmont, California. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Notre |