“It is not a mild infection, it is not a mild virus; it is a severe illness. And they kept on telling me they wish they’d known beforehand how bad measles was, so that they could have protected their family,” she said.
“It is not a mild infection, it is not a mild virus; it is a severe illness. And they kept on telling me they wish they’d known beforehand how bad measles was, so that they could have protected their family,” she said.
You know how there’s always this one lingering childhood resentment that’s hard to let go of? Here’s mine:
I don’t remember exactly how old I was, just that it was some age when candy and presents were really important. But however old I was at the time, I got chicken pox as a kid (no vaccines for it back then).
I got it around Halloween, and my parents wouldn’t let me go out trick-or-treating. I objected strongly because, you know, candy! So they sent my sisters out with a spare pillowcase to collect candy for me, which they dutifully did.
When they got back, instead of coming into the house, they sat down on the sidewalk a couple houses away and dumped each pillowcase into it’s own separate pile. Then they traded out all of my chocolate for all of their Mary Janes and Bit o’ Honeys. I had literally no chocolate or other preferred candy in my bag, it was all the crap candy no one ever wanted. I complained to my parents and was told that I should be grateful just to be getting any candy at all.
Two months later, both my sisters got chicken pox. My grandparents, saying how awful it must be to have chicken pox over the holidays, gave them extra Christmas presents. This is my lingering childhood resentment, and the injustice of it still stings.