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Lent, when followers of Jesus are asked to prepare themselves through self-reflection and repentance for the death and resurrection of Christ. For this reason, Mom remembers feeling particularly dark and somber. This first surgery was not performed in a children's hospital, and there was trouble inserting the IV into my small veins. The nurse tried to enter the vein again and again; it was painful and frightening. Finally, Dr. Brown, with the help of Mom and Dad, held me down as the appropriate vein was accessed with the needle. My parents would be sure that the rest of my operations took place in a children's hospital, where the nurses and doctors would have experience poking tinier veins. After this incident, I was an uncooperative patient: I pulled out the hard-won IV twice after the operation. If I saw a needle coming in my direction, I pitched a screaming fit. Pills given to calm and sedate had the reverse effect, making me more agitated and belligerent.
    During the surgery, a full (hip spica) body cast was fitted over me from midchest to knee. My right leg, from knee to foot, was the only part of the lower body not covered with stiff white plaster. My thighs were held apart by a metal bar; my bottom half looked like a wishbone ready to be pulled apart. Some friends rigged up a walker by removing the regular seat from a small table with wheels and suspending a bicycle seat in the middle of it. I could sit upright and play with my toys on the table and eat standing up. I was also propped up on pillows on the floor or in my crib.
    My parents often put me in their bed and slept one on either side of me, because Mom thought it was important that I be turned during the night. They woke up at two-hour intervals and carefully, slowly, turned me onto my back, then my stomach, then my back again, all through the night. The cast was on for eight weeks; after that, I was back in the brace.
    In February 1978, our family moved to Laramie, Wyoming, where Dad had accepted a job as the pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church.
    Laramie, called "the gem city of the Plains," is set in a valley between two mountain ranges in southeastern Wyoming, about one hour west of Cheyenne and three hours from the Colorado border. The land was not as green as it had been in Nebraska, but the air was fresh and arid; the streets were lined with cottonwood and aspen trees. The foothills in the distance were spotted with evergreens and scrubby sagebrush. At night, you could almost always see the stars.
    Mom worked long hours as a nurse in the local hospital. I felt her warm presence, late at night, at the edge of my bed. She put her hand on my forehead and kissed me. I heard the soft click as she turned off my kitty-cat-shaped radio, the music gone now to static when all of the Wyoming stations finally went off the air. I often fell asleep in church, and Dad scooped me up in his arms as he left the sanctuary at the end of the service. I woke up staring at the faces of parishioners who had turned in their pews to watch the two of us. I felt Dad's steady steps—his practiced, processional prance—and inhaled the scent of his heavy clerical robes: pine trees, musky sweat, and dust. The deep notes of the organ vibrated through the air.
    Surrounding our new house were rows of yellow shrubs that Andy and I called "bee bushes" because there were always fat bumblebees hanging from the bright yellow flowers. We took empty jelly jars, trapped a bee on a branch inside the jar, and then ripped off the branch and screwed the lid on tightly, with the bewildered bee still inside. We punched holes in the top with a screwdriver and watched to see how long the bees lived; they flung their fat, disoriented bodies against the glass, buzzing wildly. After they died, we dumped their shriveled corpses in the backyard.
    Daddy longleg spiders were also easy victims, as they were relatively easy to capture. I picked them up and pulled off one of their legs—as easy to do as unwinding a