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.