After the passage of two hours or more, Dad would return, faithfully maintaining his daily surprise. The gift would be placed among my other treasures to be enjoyed and to become part of the memory which was already forming in my brain. The mail had arrived, and he would look through the cards, reading slowly the message or poem, then flipping to the front of the card once again. "That's nice," he would say, and pick up another to read. Dear 'ol Dad, I loved him so. I wondered why it seemed more difficult to let him know; I had no need to fear him, his brusque overtones were not always the fruit of anger as much as despair. I knew that when I hugged him, his heart nearly burst, his was no cold, indifferent demeanor. . . Dad's heart possessed the hardness of an eggshell. The remainder of the day would pass according to routine. We took walks through the halls, longer now that I was gaining endurance, and began to trod on unfamiliar ground, past dimly illuminated passages and ancient, rather ominous corridors which had never worn a bright splash of paint. It was depressing and almost scary in these foreboding extremities of the hospital, and I was glad for Dad's company. On one particularly memorable excursion we had reached the end of the lengthy, darkened corridor and stumbled upon a window, situated next to the elevator, which faced the pediatrics ward from whence we had come. As we were surveying the scene, the elevator door opened, and a woman appeared, clad in a hospital gown, whose visage shocked my young eyes; her eyes bore the sign of a failing anatomy, jaundiced to such a degree that they seemed to have the uncanny glow of a neon sign. She carried on her face an indisposition to speak; I turned away, but not with obvious haste, trying to feign a degree of casual preoccupation toward the window as she moved into the hallway. The whites of her eyes, yellow as buttercups, were entrenched into my memory, haunting me after she disappeared around the corner. Such sights were not alien to the hospital or clinic buildings yet they could not pass one's notice without delivering a jolt of awareness, of pity for the individual whose grasp on mortality was waning beneath humanity's unsettled gaze. Somewhat disturbed after encountering the unusual pair of eyes, I was content to return to the comparative gaiety of the children's ward. Giving up the desolate sea of green wherefrom we had emerged, we were received by a conglomeration of lights which imparted to us an aura of welcome and flooded the ward with a sense of security.