A Bite of Grace

Standing Up for the Least of These

November 1962, Salt Lake City, Utah

Twelve girls lived on the Big Girls’ Ward at the Hospital for Crippled Children. I was ten. I was also the only girl who could walk unaided, the only girl with a plaster cast straightening out her left wrist.

But I wasn’t the only girl who felt like crying.

My first night, Sharon couldn’t stop sobbing. She’d just had surgery and was still in what the girls called the Dead Bed—closest to the nurse’s station. A night nurse, in her white, winged nurse hat and squeaky shoes, swooped in and rolled Sharon, still in her bed, out of the ward, to “calm down in the cast room,” the nurse said.

That the nurse would scold Sharon for crying when the poor kid just had surgery made me mad, but I pretended to be asleep. Who knew what other sorts of punishments girls might get for acting out. Instead, I prayed for her while her cries echoed down the hall.

Lesson number one: no crying, ever.

By my second week I was worried that the other eleven girls—all between the ages of eight to fourteen—might not like me.

At the top of the pecking order, thirteen-year-old Paula ruled, with girls-in-waiting attending her wheelchair throne. She had pretty, short dark hair and claimed to be writing a novel. I was insanely jealous, because I hated my hair and I was writing a novel too.

One afternoon, Paula announced a new club. Anyone who was anyone was dying to be a member, she said, and all the girls in plaster casts or confined to their beds practically fell over themselves to be included. All except me.

As the only girl on the ward who could walk unaided, I sashayed up to Paula to tell her where she could stuff her stupid club. But she said, “Linda, I don’t think you belong in the club.”

Queen Paula’s fangirls smirked, as if to say I wasn’t club material. I couldn’t think of a witty comeback, so I lunged forward.

And bit Paula’s upper arm.

Everyone gasped. I hadn’t even broken the skin, but a circle of teeth marks stood out like a cattle brand. Paula rubbed her arm. “You’ll never be in my club.”

I stepped back. “I didn’t mean to!” I yelled. “Forgive me!”

But I was banned from the club for life, and Paula’s cronies avoided me until the only hospital friend I had was a fourteen-year-old also named Linda.

Friendship Blooms

Linda had severe cerebral palsy and developmental delays. She didn’t walk or talk except for grunts and moans, and nurses said she was like a three-year-old. Linda couldn’t even sit up without a strap tying her to a chair. Every weekday, the nurses rolled her down the hall to hospital school, but with the strap cutting off her middle, she mostly just drooled and looked miserable.

 I don’t remember why, but one day Linda and I were alone at the ward while the rest were at school. I’d scrawled some stories in a notebook, to prove that I was really writing a novel, and I spent that afternoon reading it to her.

I was getting to the best part—about a girl imprisoned in an evil queen’s dungeon—when nurse’s aide Jensen showed up. My least favorite yellow-dress aide, Jensen had frizzy short hair and smelled like alcohol. Besides that, she dug her nails into your wrist while taking your pulse.

My friend was lying down, happily drooling as I read my story. Jensen inspected Linda’s bed. “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” she said before fast walking out to the nurse’s station. Moments later, with the nurse in tow, she came back carrying folded sheets.

The nurse pursed her lips. “Look what you did!” she clucked, yanking the sheet out from under Linda. A bloom of red stained the white sheet.

I knew about girls’ periods, but why was that so bad? I threw down my notebook and stood up—I might have even stuck my good hand on my hip.  “She didn’t mean to,” I said. “Linda didn’t mean to!”

But Jensen and the nurse proceeded to strip both the bed and Linda. By now Linda was moaning, as Paula and the rest of the girls arrived back from hospital school.

They gawked at her, lying there with nothing on.

I saw her nakedness and my own.

I was a sinner, a biter, someone who didn’t belong in the club. On the Big Girls’ Ward of life, there were winners and losers, those who obeyed and those who got sent away to the cast room to calm down. I made up my mind to help the Lindas of the world and stand up for those who needed a friend.

As they changed the sheets, Jensen and the nurse kept shaming Linda, rolling her side to side as if she was a piece of furniture. They never brought a privacy screen, never offered any kindness. Finally, Linda was dressed, and the nurse squeaked back to her station. I briefly thought of biting Jensen. Instead, I told Linda she was my best friend. That night I screamed into my pillow and cried.