Art Assignment: Body in Place
Let me tell you a story. Nearly every day, I walk by the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital sign on my way back to my dorm. It’s a sign that most people speed by on their way to wherever they’re going. I can’t. I’ve never been in this Children’s Hospital. But I spent most weekends for nearly a year at the Comer Children’s Hospital at the University of Chicago. This is because in 2013, my younger sister was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, bone cancer.
But this is not a sad story. People are quick to associate hospitals with tragedy, pain, “That poor family” stories.
Let me tell you a new story. For one year, my sister received chemotherapy treatments, requiring her to stay in the hospital for a week at a time. In this year, she lost her hair, was unable to attend school, and received a complete knee replacement surgery. Also in this year, she held her head high in a fuzzy hat as she walked into public places, completed all coursework in the hospital (often forgetting she had completed it thanks to chemotherapy effects), and walked around the hospital wing several times every day so that she could walk across the stage without crutches at her eighth grade graduation. Three years later and she is two years in remission, has risen to the top of her class in high school, volunteers on the Colorado Make A Wish youth council, skied downhill for the first time since her surgery, and told her story in front of her entire school in order to help raise money for other Make A Wish kids.
I enlisted my sister’s help in this assignment. The children’s hospital near where we live is also in a drive-by location. But for our family, children’s hospitals are highly visible. They are places where battles are fought. Where healing happens. Where strength is found. With our bodies, we have rewritten the story of this location as one of strength. Of celebration. Of sisterhood and family. Of courage.
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