All I Remember

A handicapped child is a handicapped family. I don't know who said it, but it is very, very true. I was eight years old when my sister, three years my senior, fell ill with osteomyelitis. It turned out to be an extremely long and very serious disease. She finally recovered but was unable to cope with the legacy of her illness, a physical handicap. Not all that catastrophic, had her previous personality been healthy. Her physical handicap was solely blamed for her abnormal behaviour, and her very neurotic personality was not taken into account. When finally she took to bed, and refused food, it was decided she should undergo a psychoanalysis?a treatment, in those days, only occasionally carried out on a patient so young. My parents, feeling helpless, desperate and unconsciously very guilty, agreed to it. Every day for over three years an ambulance would turn up to take her to the analyst. Neither