From the Outside Looking In

In a large, bright room, sunlight streams through a wide window, casting shadows over wooden floors and open doors. The walls are painted vibrant, daring colors, and the room is filled with signs of home—a guitar resting in the corner, a keyboard pushed up against the wall, scented candles flickering gently, thick blankets strewn across a spacious king bed.  Alphabet blocks and stuffed animals lay scattered about, evidence of imaginations run wild.

Moving down the wall, between the wide window and the open door, sits a bathroom no bigger than a closet, and a space too large to be an alcove and too small to be another room. It holds a table scuffed and marked in paint and crayon, covered in sheet music and utility bills and surrounded by four chairs welcoming a seat.  A refrigerator is packed to the gills with good things to eat—vegetables and fruits and a little carton of ice cream. At closer look, on the top shelf sits cool glass vials full of life support. A delicate hormone, that could save a life or take it.

And as you look around, you begin to see the effects of this disease--A spot of blood on the ear of a teddy bear, impossible to get off. Needles and syringes lying about. A roll of glucose tablets on the table. A little face. A little girl—five years old, already veteran to the vicious roller coaster of this disease and what it entails. Highs and lows. Multiple shots a day. Blood. Tears. A fight to manage, control; a fight to live.  

Her fingerprints are all about, enough for a dozen crime scenes. In paint on the table; in dust on the keyboard; in blood on the sheets.  Evidence of her presence is abundant.

She smiles. She laughs musically; her big green eyes light up with life. She’s the one who’s strewn the sheets into a castle and torn them down again to snuggle close.  She’s the one who helped plant the flowers in the window, and who scribbled the table in paint and crayon.

The bright sunlight casts shadows through her dark auburn hair as she chatters about: Bright, beautiful, blossoming.

No..

From the outside looking in, you would have no idea of the monster that rules.