Perhaps all of the previous events were too much for me; I was suddenly ill with migraine headaches in a manner which I had never before encountered.

April 26, 1977... Got a migraine headache at 5th period. Didn't go home though. Called Dad when school let out, but there was no answer, so I had to walk home. It was hard, but I made it.

April 27, 1977... At 2nd period I got another migraine. It took a half hour to get Dad 'cuz he was outside. Finally I got home. I felt bad!!

April 28, 1977... You won't believe this! I didn't! Well, I got another migraine today right after lunch. Dad got me again. Slept most all day.

After three days of head-wrenching, I decided to play it safe and recuperate at home. I found I became paranoid concerning the multiple headaches, and feared that my worry would result in more pain.

A week later.

May 5, 1977... Got a migraine AGAIN!!!!!... Dad got a prescription for me and it said to take two capsules, so I did and a half hour later, I got all numb...

How well I recall that incident. I was seated at my place at the dinner table after having swallowed (miraculously) the pills, when I suddenly was immersed in a bath of incredible, yet unfounded hilarity.

I began to snicker, then burst into a cascade of inexplicable laughter.

My family looked up from their plates and, because of humor's rather contagious nature, broke into bewildered smiles and tried to detect the source of my behavior. "Really..." I replied, "I don't know why I'm laughing..." Then, just as rapidly as it had begun, the laughter ceased and I was convulsed in a fit of tears. It was embarra.s.sing to me for I had no control over my emotions, and agitated, I fled from the room. At length I was able to quench my strange and unbidden tears while Dad sat beside me with a worried look on his face.

Afterward I marveled at a drug's ability to produce such startling effects, yet I was equally startled by the fact that some people knowingly swallowed pills to acquire mind-altered states of being.

Such was not my goal in life; self-control meant too much to my inner presence to eradicate reality.

A week and a half later I had another migraine. It was full-blown; I even had to vomit. I didn't, however, take another pill. Lack of control was much worse than the presence of pain.

May 18, 1977... School. I got a trophy for doing the Vision cover and also a certificate for (submitting) "A Friend" in "Accent on Ink."

Great!!

June 1, 1977... The 9th graders got yearbooks today. Everyone liked 'em... Dad got me and helped me take my cedar chest home.

June 2, 1977... Last full day!! We signed yearbooks all day.

The last day of school was always fun. It was a time for reflection and reliving past events, and while in the midst of such activity, one cla.s.smate turned to me and casually asked, "Laurie, you had cancer, didn't you?" "Yes," I replied, and briefly related that which had occurred to me, including my loss of hair. At one point in the conversation, I noticed the teacher staring widely at me, as if in disbelief. "You look healthy now," his face seemed to say. After the conversation turned to a different subject, the teacher sat down on my desk and asked more details of my experience. Suddenly, he began lamenting his marital difficulties and personal problems. It was my turn to listen in disbelief; it seemed odd to be selected as a teacher's confidant. Although aside from teacher and student we were both human beings, I did not feel comfortable with the conversation.

I tried to react as an unsurprised, objective listener; perhaps having been subjected to pain, he felt comfortable and rather compelled to tell me of his own. It was something I never forgot, nor did I encounter such circ.u.mstances again.

The end had come of what, at first, had been an emotionally draining year. I had experienced much kindness and cruelty, pleasure and pain, yet I persevered through all the trials and returned all of the smiles... and at last, the positive outweighed the negative.

As I left the hallways of the junior high school which had, only three years before, appeared a ma.s.sive array of corridors, I welcomed summer with customary gladness and reveled in the freedom that greeted my steps. My exit was not saluted with lengthy accomplishments or popular admiration, and that did not mar my happiness; I cared neither for applause nor popularity. I knew, however, that I had done my best and touched several lives; making an indelible impression on someone's mind was indeed the highest of compliments that I could have merited.

Directions

Directions are disturbing, At least they are to me, How anyone ever follows them Is more than I can see.

They say to take notch "B"

And slide it into "F"

Or else to take the "right" side And fold it to the "left."

Then in opening a band-aid They say to pull a string, Well I could pull and pull and pull all day And never reach the thing.

And say you want some Pringles, Preferably for Brunch, But you couldn't get them open Until it's time for lunch!

Directions are a problem, (I think to everyone), And it's comforting to know I'm not the only one!

Lauren Isaacson 9th Grade

PAGE 133

Chapter 18 Summer 1977

"I felt as if my heart would burst, for never had I experienced such profound closeness with nature. . . My sense of reality had heightened and every inch of my body was alive with incomparable sensations."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Summer 1977