Even though I was not even 4 years old, I have quite a few memories, mental photographs, of the three months I spent with Granny & Gladys when my mother was at the hospital with Gabriela. I can’t be sure that the images I have of Granny and Gladys with me come from this period of time, it’s difficult to pinpoint how old I was the time we went to Sados and they bought me a doll – that I think I might have named María Eugenia – that came with lots of lots of little toys in the box. But some other images, those of the hospital and the park, could only come from this time.
Gabriela and my mom stayed in the only private room the hospital hard. At that time (and perhaps now as well), the Hospital de Niños had large rooms with multiple beds for all its little patients. I don’t know why my sister was given that room, a few years later, it’d be my (second) cousin Fernando who would occupy it. Fernando, a wonderful, smart, funny little boy, son of my first cousin Barullo, got leukemia when he was 7 years old.

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