Excerpt of Too Early for Flowers: The Story of a Polio Mother by Kurt Sipolski

In this scene from Too Early for Flowers, polio-stricken
Gray is taken to the hospital by his family for his
second operation. Several other little boys are in the
same room.

It was an awful time for everyone as Bill, Iris and Jimmy
prepared to leave. Gray burst into tears, then Larry
started to whimper, then the other boys. They knew from
their own experience what it was like to be left in the
hospital as the family left and they were in complete
sympathy for Gray.

Iris whispered in Gray’s ear, “You are the bravest boy I
know. You can do this.”

As they walked away from him in his hospital room in
Peoria to drive home he cried terribly and it broke Iris’
heart.

“I’m sorry I had polio. Please don’t leave me here. I’m
sorry!”

She cried all the way back to Hardscrabble. Bill’s heart
was in his mouth. Two of the most important people in the
world to him were hurting and as big and powerful as he
was, he felt helpless.

They couldn’t return the next day, but had to be there
the following day as that was when surgery was scheduled.
Iris was anxious the entire time and barely spoke during
the seemingly endless drive. She had Bill drop her off at
the entrance before he parked the car. She walked quickly
inside, knowing Gray would be nervous and scared.

Instead, there was laughter coming out of the room. When
Iris walked in, Gray said, “Mom, guess what dumb old
Larry did!” Iris kissed him on the lips and said, “What
did dumb old Larry do?” as she sat next to him and smiled
at Larry.

“That big fat Nurse Emma came in. We call her “Nurse
Enema.” He laughed. “She came in and asked everyone when
their last bowel movement was and Larry told her the
TRUTH.” Gray squealed all over again as she looked at
Larry lying on his stomach, miserable and embarrassed
from the procedure.

Gray had learned three years earlier you say, “Oh, I just
had one” and never, ever: “the day before yesterday.”

“Larry’s a dummee” the boys started to chant. The other
parents started to arrive and the kidding stopped
suddenly.

Then Gray started to whisper: “Mom, last night the guys
and I were joking with George. He’s so little we were
kidding him and I called him a squab. But today when his
family came to take him home he told them I was calling
him names. His Mom just came over and stared at me. I put
the sheet over my head she looked so mad. But I was just
kidding. Just like Jimmy and I do.”

Iris knew immediately what the problem was.

“George is a black boy. When he told his mother you were
calling him names she probably thought you called him a
nigger.”

“A nigger? What’s that?”

“Oh, it’s just a name that’s not very nice now for black
people. At one time it didn’t mean anything too terrible
but now people made it ugly.”

Gray was still baffled. “But what’s wrong with somebody
being black?”

She sat closer to him on the bed and held his right hand.
“When some people aren’t very happy inside with
themselves they make fun of others, sometimes when it’s
nothing that can be helped.”

“Oh,” Gray suddenly understood. “Like when Teddy called
me a cripple right before I popped him!”

“Yes, and sometimes people like that need to be popped.”

“But why didn’t she just ask me?” Gray said. “He left
this morning and she’ll always think I called him a bad
name and be mad at me.”

“Oh, Gray…practically all the problems in the whole world
could be solved if people would just talk to each other.
Sometimes people think something wrong and it just grows
and festers, when nothing was meant at all.

“You know, some people don?t like Jewish people, but it
was a Jewish doctor who invented the Salk vaccine.”

Gray paused. “Well. Why are people like that?”

“People are the way they are. Sometimes people change.”
She thought of herself. “And sometimes they don’t.”

When his parents left for a cafeteria lunch, Gray thought
and thought. He really wasn’t sure if he liked the world
that would await him.