CHAPTER ONE
THE SUMMER of 1969.
I was seven years old, and my brother Shawn was three years older. We lived down by the river in a cabin, and after school we would come home, throw on our shorts, and disappear until it started getting dark. We fished, swam, and rode the rapids, rump riding, without flotation devices. How we didn’t break a leg or drown is beyond me. I always had Shawn to rope me in when I was doing something crazy and he probably saved my life on a few occasions. We had a summer cabin a few hundred feet away where one of the kids, Frankie, had a new mini-motorbike. We went out on the road, and on heading back I had an idea – I grabbed the handle behind the seat and ran. The bike accelerated and I kept running and holding on. I couldn’t run any faster but I wasn’t backing down so kept holding on. I fell and hit the pavement but still kept holding on as my head smacked the ground. I let go when my adrenaline drained and my head hurt. I staggered up and eventually made it home. I kept the incident from Mom because I wasn’t supposed to be around the bike.
Years went by and I started having headaches. These were so bad that I’d be on the couch screaming for hours and pressing my head as hard as I could between the cushions and the armrest. When it finally went away I felt the calm after the storm. There was a settling, euphoric stillness. I would go to my room and lay down with a book and go to sleep. A few times I was awakened by an older lady with white hair and a dress that appeared to be flowing like a wind had it. I told my mom and she told me it was my great-grandmother.
I spent the next year on different medications and was tested for allergies. Twelve years old I was laid down on an operating table as they made a hundred cuts with a small scalpel putting differ