The Choir He Wanted, The LIfe He Had

Tuesday, September 5, 1934

"Jack, wake up. You have to go to school."

My mother was shaking my arm as I lied in bed. I groaned and rolled over so that I was facing her, but I did not open my eyes. Not at first. My mother shook my arm again.

"Come on, get up," she said. I groaned again and reluctantly opened my eyes. I saw my mother's face only a few inches away from mine. She wasn't smiling, but instead looked rather annoyed.

"Whyyyyy?" I whined.

"Because you have to go to school," my mother replied. I rolled over so that I was looking up at the ceiling.

"I don't wanna go to schooool," I whined again as my mother lifted me up and stood me on the bed.

"You have to," she said. I groaned again, still half asleep, but my mother didn't mind me.

"You need to get dressed," she said. She paused for only a minute, but the minute was long enough for me to begin noticing the feelings that came from waking up after a long night of sleep. There was a dull feeling of hunger, a bit of thirst, but the strongest thing I felt was the overpowering urge to urinate.

"Mummy!" I said, bringing my knees together and bobbing up and down with my hands between my legs, "I have to go pee!"

"Okay," my mother said. She lifted me off of the bed and set me on the floor, then she pushed me forward gently and said, "Hurry!"

I ran as fast as I could out of my room and down the long hallway to the stairs. It was mornings like this that made me wish there was more than one bathroom in our house. It didn't help much that it was on the bottom level of the house and my room was on the floor above it.

When I finally got to the end of the hall, I raced down the stairs and ran down another hallway that led to the bathroom. To my despair, I found that the bathroom door was closed, and when I tried to open it I found that I couldn't.

The door was locked.

I banged my hands against the door frantically. I heard my father's voice from inside the bathroom.

"Occupied," he said simply.

"Daddy, hurry!" I cried, once again banging my hands on the door. "I have to go pee-pee!"

"I'll be out in a minute!" my father called back.

"Daddy, I have to pee now!" I cried. In truth, it was an understatement. I really had to pee. It had been almost a year since I had become toilet trained, and I still had accidents sometimes. I did not want today to be one of those times. Being only six years old, I knew I couldn't wait long.

I banged on the door again and yelled, "Daddy!"

"Hold on!" he yelled back.

"I can't!" I yelled. I heard the toilet flush, but it only made me feel more desperate. As my father began washing his hands, I slipped off my pajama bottoms and threw them aside. The minute my father opened the bathroom door, I pushed past him and was at the toilet before my father even began closing the door. My father had left the lid of the toilet up (thank God) and so all I had to do was slip off my underwear before climbing onto the toilet.

I sighed as I finally relieved myself. I was used to days like this, but not every one of those days ended like this. I didn't always make it. I wouldn't have made it today if I hadn't gotten into the bathroom when I did.

As I finished, my mother knocked on the door.

"Almost done!" I yelled. I got down from the toilet and flushed it, then put on my underwear. I opened the bathroom door and saw my mother standing outside.