Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man



I'm the one in the middle. I usually hate people who show off baby pictures like it's something special, but this is slightly different. I've been looking at this picture for as long as I could remember, and one time finally asked Mom and Dad why it is that I look so miserable in it. As it turns out, it's because I was dying when this picture was taken. Apparently I was very, very sick when I was younger and very nearly died, and would have if not for the intervention of a man named Dr. Nau. For whatever reason, though, my parents felt the need to photograph my young self, and siblings, professionally. So there you have it. In one of the very few pictures of the young three of us in existence, my brother and sister look normal (except her hair, but come on) and happy, and I look like I am about to die, mostly because, in fact, I was.