When Josh was in treatment, a dear friend of ours gave him a cute stuffed gorilla. Josh immediately named him “King Louie”. I think he was inspired by the Jungle Book movie.
Anyway, King Louie was with Josh during EVERY hospital stay. Josh frequently gave King Louie shots . Josh put an IV in King Louie’s hand complete with gauze and tape. King Louie wore a neck brace 24/7 just like Josh did for his year of treatment. Once treatment was over King Louie sat on Josh’s bed still wearing a neck brace, still with an IV in his hand. Josh rarely sleeps in his bed as he prefers to sleep in his bed in his House in the Trees, so King Louie and all the other animals in his room had been forgotten…until recently.
I’ve been in the mood to do some deep cleaning. Believe me, this is such a rare phenomenon, that when it strikes me, I go for it! One project I had decided on was to convert the “sewing” loft near Josh’s bedroom into a “Lego/toy” loft for him and I enlisted his help. All of the completed Lego pieces he had put together over the years were removed from his room and put on display on the shelves of the loft. Carefully, he set them up in their proper groups, sometimes displaying action. This left room for him to move all of his stuffed animals on his bed to an empty shelf area in his room. I put him in charge of moving and displaying them how he wanted.
Today, I walked into Josh’s room to put something away, when I noticed King Louie. For the first time ever, King Louie was sitting there without a neck brace on; instead he sports a bright red bow tie! I took a closer look and discovered he no longer has an IV in his hand either! Instead his hand was clean and furry with a small remaining piece of tape, which I quickly removed. I patted King Louie on the head and smiled to myself.
I’m not sure, but I could have sworn King Louie smiled back at me.
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