Prophetic in it's own way

[tblue37]

6. As a child I read a lot of 19th century novels. In them, young children often

died of illness, so in my inexperience, with my mind shaped by so many 19th century novels, I just assumed that was the way the world worked. I had 5 siblings, and I used to look around at the dinner table and wonder which ones of us would survive past the age of 10. I always figured we'd be lucky if only 2 of us died, but I worried that our parents would lose more than 2--or perhaps even all of us--and I felt so sorry for them.

I was too young to realize how drastically antibiotics had altered the impact of diseases and infections on childhood mortality.