My father got up at five o‘clock every morning of the week that summer to commute to the city. while the rest of us stayed at the lake to finish my “job.”
The next autumn, I resumed ballet and piano lessons. My dance teacher didn’t think I was ready. but my father convinced her otherwise.
By the time I entered junior high school two years later, I was normal. “You’ll be meeting lots of new kids who know nothing of your illness,” my father counseled. “Never tell anyone about it. It"s over and past.” Suffering didn’t matter to my father. Getting over it did. I took his advice. To this day, very few people, even close friends, know about this event in my life.
“Thank You, Daddy.” My 18th birthday came one day in late November. At the end of the day I was in my bedroom. Staring at my bare neck in the dressing-table mirror, I imagined what it would look like encased in leather and steel. I rushed straight to my parents’ bedroom and knocked urgently on the door. When my father opened it. I ran. sobbing. into his arms. “Thank you. Daddy. for giving me life . . . twice." He only smiled and hugged me. We never spoke of it again.
My father died at age ol. But he lived to see me. an honor student. dance and sing my way through high school. teaching ballet to put myself through Michigan State Eniyeersity. Instead of braces on my neck, he saw crowns placed on my head when I won various beauty-pageant competitions.
He walked me down the aisle and gave me away in marriage. He saw me perform in TY commercials, heard me on my network radio show. and read my health and beauty books as I enjoyed a public career that would have been impossible if he hadn’t said "no“ to polio.
Most of all. he watched me grow into the kind of woman he always meant for his little girl to be. Healthy. Happy. And. thanks to him. holding my head high.
Irish Missed
WHILE on A TRIP to Ireland, a woman stayed in the home of two elderly aunts. They seemed to be teetotalers; yet, each evening they asked the question, “Would you be wantin’ the bottle tonight? We don’t need it.“ For four nights the guest allowed she didn’t need it. She would feel uncomfortable drinking alone, she thought. On the fifth day. the itinerary included a long drive in a cold, dense fog. The guest was chilled to the bone upon returning to the house. so when asked the customary question. she announced that the bottle would, indeed, be most welcome. The aunts scurried around - and handed her a hot-water bottle.