Chapter 2

STRANGE as it may seem, she loved the sanatorium from the start. She had more freedom there than she had in the orphanage, and she had other girls and women and men who chatted with her.

She was the only child there and she was just like a little ray of sunshine sent to brighten the drab and monotonous life of the patients who had been confined to bed for months in the depressing atmosphere of the sanatorium, where cures were so few and where death knocked so frequently.

She went around each morning and helped the nurse hand out the various medicines, and she had a cheery smile and a word of encouragement for each patient. But it took some time to get used to her broad Scotch accent.

She wasn't tall for a child of twelve and was rather slim. Her hair was dark brown and not too long, and her face oval in shape and of an ivory pallor, which looks so beautiful in the early stages of TB. Her eyes were jet black in colour and her teeth small and pearly white, beautiful teeth which she carefully brushed every morning and evening. She had a smile which started at each comer of her mouth and gradually spread over her features until her black eyes bubbled over with merriment. But the most remarkable part of her features were two dimples, one on each cheek-—-dimples which still remained although her body gradually wasted away during long months of suffering. And even after death, while she lay in the mortuary shed waiting to be coffined, the two dimples were still visible on her pale cold cheeks.

The long days of summer went slowly by, and while many people enjoyed a respite by the sea Kathleen spent her days with the sick and the dying. Soon autumn came with its sighing winds and falling leaves, and still no visible sign of the dreaded disease appeared on her features, except the ivory pallor and a persistent cough.

The patients who are still alive may remember Halloween night 1946. Those who could get up were allowed to do so, and all of them assembled in the common sitting room. Away from their relatives, and outcasts from the rest of the world, they enjoyed themselves with music and song.

What outcasts they were can be shown by what a woman from the town said on one occasion, “They should never have built the San. there, they should have put them away out in the mountains. That used to be a nice walk round there and now nobody can go round there with all that disease around.”

On another occasion, two girls came into town without the permission of the Matron, in order to get some objects blessed at the end of a mission. Afterwards, they entered a shop, and when it was accidentally discovered that they were from Creagh Sanatorium everybody in the shop, hastily withdrew, and the two girls were left all alone.

Outcasts from society, the patients enjoyed themselves in their own way on that Halloween evening, and the merriest and the liveliest was Kathleen. When I called in for a short visit she was the first to greet me and came across to me with outstretched arms. Dressed in a kilted plaid, she danced a lot of Scottish steps and sang songs she learned at school, and her favourite song was “Did your mother come from Ireland?" and also "Where did you get those Irish eyes of blue?” Little did we think that evening that within a year she would be dead.

Christmas came, and for the first time in her short life, she received presents. When the schoolboys heard about her, all of them contributed generously towards sending her gifts and presents and something nice to eat. It was a spontaneous offering to a lonely child who was to spend Christmas Day in bed in the depressing atmosphere of a sanatorium.

On Christmas Eve she got her presents, and as each one was opened and laid on the bed beside her, little cries of astonishment escaped from her lips and her eyes sparkled with wonder and delight. Suddenly the eyes grew dim and big tears rolled down her cheeks, in spite of the two fists which she pressed into them. A nurse passing by stopped and looked at her in surprise. “What are you crying for, Kathleen?” she asked.

“I'm not really crying,” the child replied, "I cannot help it, I am so happy”.

It was the first time anyone thought of sending her presents, and few can realise the craving there is in the heart of a child, and especially a lonely child in hospital, for someone to send little tokens of friendship and remembrance.

Later that evening she got up and then I discovered what progress the disease had already made in her lungs. The women had finished decorating their day-room, as they called the common sitting-room, while the men were still working on their own day-room. And Kathleen was anxious to find out how far the men had progressed and how the decorations looked.

“You take me down,” she coaxed, "and the Matron won't mind”. As I caught her hand to bring her down through the wards she drew back in fright. “Not that way,” she said anxiously. "Not down the men's ward, there's a man dying, and I'm afraid to pass by him.”

We went along the concrete path outside, and when it ended we stepped onto the grass. Suddenly Kathleen stopped. “I have only house shoes on, and I cannot walk on wet grass". “We had better go back then,” I said. "Oh, no," she said in dismay.

Then she looked shyly at me and held out her arms. “Carry me,” she said, "and I will try and not be too heavy.” I bent down and took her up, and she wasn’t very heavy. She was so close to me that I could hear the rasping sound from her lungs as she breathed in and out. Then the truth dawned on me. Her lungs were badly perforated. As we passed along by the lighted windows, I noticed a screen round one of the beds, and I knew the soul of a long-suffering patient was preparing to spend Christmas in another world. Kathleen turned her eyes away while passing the window. Yet in a short time she grew more hardened to many a death scene.

The men received her with a hearty welcome and listened with amazement to her advice and directions.