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When I woke up, I felt sick. I sat up in bed, realizing I was already late for work. Then suddenly the memories of the previous night flooded into my recollection and I fell back onto my bed.

My sister was dead, and I would never get to see her get married and become a mother, which was always her wish. But it would never be. My anger again was aroused, and I spoke aloud to God, saying, "Why, Lord, have you taken my sister's life? Do you not have any consideration for human kind?"

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"Matilda is very sick."

I couldn't believe my brother's words. Yes she was sick; she'd been sick for the past week, but had been recovering the past couple days. I had been there at noon that day and she had seemed almost ready to get up and walk. I wondered how she could be sick again.

The evening was the fourteenth of December. The year was 1873. It was bitterly cold outside, yet I sat comfortable inside, warmed by a fire, and content and happy. But I could have been outside, chilled by the frosty fingers of the wind, and been just as content and happy. How could anyone not be who was in my place? God had blessed me, immensely. I was not yet twenty-three years of age and I had more than I could ask for.

Being a child is a fabulous way
To honestly say exactly what you want to say
It is a natural process to express
Unless it is annihilated using duress
Children are freest among all humans
Only to be squelched and socially ruined
By grown ups with issues they may or may not see
Trying to superimpose on youngins how to be
Like them, all serious and wearing a mask
Lying to themselves and to proud to ask
For help to release all the pain they incurred
By growing up and thinking childhood is absurd