I don't know exactly why I've been thinking about this lately, but I have; I think it might be because I dreamed about it earlier in the week, but I didn't exactly remember it, but I knew it had something to do with it...but I'd thought I share my thoughts.
When I was in Shriner's Hospital for Children nine years ago with my hip problems, One of my room mates was a girl about my age named Gracie. I remember her quite well, and I remember the time I had first met her. I don't know the full extent of why Gracie was there exactly, but I know that her right leg was shorter than her left because she had a special brace that they drilled holes into her leg, and every day they would move a special dial on the brace and slowly, day by day, the brace would lengthen her leg.
We used to stay up with each other and watch movies on nights when we had extreme pain. She was so incredibly nice the day I had my first surgery on my hip, when I couldn't eat anything and she ate her breakfast on the other side of the curtain without me even knowing so I wouldn't get jealous of her food. We would play Mario (I think it was Mario) together down in the rec room together. And we usually always ended up doing our seperate physical therapy side by side. You could basically say we were best friends, and at the age of eight, we pretty much knew everything about each other.
Gracie was from the St. Louis area and it took her only about twenty minutes to get home, so she always had a weekend pass to go home on the weekends, unlike me who lived over eight hours away from home.
I don't really remember the day that I was discharged from Shriner's, which is weird, because you would think I would remember something like that after spending over two months in the hospital; but I don't. I don't remember saying good bye to Gracie, or even if I did say good bye to her. And that kind of bothers me slightly. We helped each other through some hard times, and even though looking back on it, several years later, it seems weird to say that we went through hard times, we were just kids having fun even though we were in the hospital. But we got through things together, we were always there for each other when we were having rough days.
We didn't get any contact information from Gracie or her family and that's something that I regret. I try not to regret things that I did or haven't done, but this is one of those instances that I really do regret it. There have been several times over the last few years when I start thinking about Gracie and want to call her up and see how's she's doing now, but I have nothing. Not even a last name.
I have a gut feeling though, that one of these days, we'll meet each other again, probably by accident; and I can't wait for that day.
Today was awesome because: I got to see my best friend who finally got back from his trip to Africa yesterday. It was fantastic to see him after a long two weeks away from him.
Oh, and a side note, I nearly hit a woman riding her bike this morning on the way to school; obviously she didn't know how to look out for vehicles.
days until the fall musical: 53
days until I become an adult: 135
days until graduation: 269
steps taken today: 5,278+
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