From Pucini's opera La Boheme

Mimi: It is deadly to be alone in winter, in spring the sun keeps us company... Mimi wasted away from turberculosis and her Bohemian friends brought her to the hospital where she dies.

My mother had tuberculosis and was brought to the Stuyvenberg Hospital in Antwerp. Yet she had already infected me. thus in Februari, while being in first grade, just learning to read and write and I, always a bit clumsy then, couldn't get the letters quiet straight. Without any explanation I was put on a small van with children. I was brought to a room where the windows were always open. There were seven beds and the whether permitting we would go for a walk in the clean air. I didn't like the food. i usually would spill it. And while in the sanatorium I read books in German, English and what they had in Dutch... Of course my handwriting never good clear and beautiful because I never practiced it...