When I reflect on the word sickness, I feel that I’ve hardly ever been truly sick. But as I think back, I can see that over the last ten years, I seem to have made up for that.  I’ve had a couple of serious illnesses, but I just never chose to consider them life-altering. 

As a child, I had the usual lineup: chicken pox, measles, mumps, colds, the flu, all those “lovely” little sicknesses that keep life interesting. I especially remember one day in kindergarten, coming home to find a big red sign posted on our front door. It announced that someone inside had a contagious illness and warned others to stay away. At the time, this was a common practice, though not long afterward, that way of announcing illness disappeared.