If Walls Could Talk, Part Two: M & M's

No, not the kind that "melts in your mouth, not in your hands".  I mean mumps and measles! : o)  And not just those two childhood diseases, either. 

If walls could talk, the light green painted tongue-in-groove board walls of our large farmhouse could tell you about us children coming down with chicken pox, mumps, measles, and whooping cough.  (Not all at one time, thank God!) 

I remember at one point, Mom had to convert the living room into a "hospital room" where she bedded down the sick.  She was vigilant in her care over us children, and she had her hands full.  Those were days when Dr. Rock still made house calls, and he came to our home.  We children didn't have the vaccinations that are now required, but we did have the polio vaccine before we started school. 

I remember my brother Stan (who is Biff in my book) and I were absent from school so much that the school nurse came to our house unnanounced one day to see if we were really sick.  As I recall, she found Stan and me sitting at the dining room table "whooping it up" and putting together a large puzzle of "The Last Supper".  I still remember how I enjoyed that -- not the whooping cough (yuck), but the puzzle. 

If walls could talk, they could tell you how our whole family gathered there with our grandparents, Claude and Olive several weeks earlier and said our goodbyes to Dad.  He was leaving for Shadyside Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to undergo heart surgery.  My youngest brother George was just two, and I was fifteen.  The walls could tell you of his pititul cries as he was separated from Mom and Dad for the first time.  Claude and Ollie took care of us.  I thought my heart would break, but I bottled up my feelings and cried my heart out when I was by myself.  I didn't know if I would ever see my father again.

Those walls could also tell you about the loving care Mom gave dad as he lay in a hospital bed in that living room and recovered from heart surgery, home safe and sound.  Those walls have been through a lot, but they still stand.

Someone else lives there now, but sometimes I long to go through that old house just one more time and hear those walls say, "Remember when?"

Copyright © 2012 Elaine Beachy