From “The Golden Hour”

The sun is a flower that blooms for just one hour.
— Ray Bradbury, “All Summer in a Day”

IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, I watch the film version of Ray Bradbury’s short story “All Summer in a Day.” We are several classes gathered into the library, huddled around one of the shared television and VCR sets. We sit with our legs crossed, hands neatly in our laps, necks craned up toward the artificial blue light. Our faces take on an eerie glow from the lit screen.

In one of the scenes, a young girl is locked in a room. Her knees are pulled into her chest and she’s sobbing. This is the saddest thing I have ever seen. The sun was taken from her.

I nursed Elyse as an infant and into toddlerhood, sitting in the rocking chair in her nursery. A patch of sunlight filtered through the blinds and landed on my arm. The beams of light held dancing motes of dust suspended mid-air. Cradled in my arms, nestled against my flesh, Elyse often submitted to sleep. A tower of children’s board books stood beside us on the dark IKEA nightstand, as well as a circus-themed music box that operated with a crank, a gift from Elyse’s grandparents. The music box played the tune “Für Elise,” composed by Beethoven, who himself was disabled. For Elyse. Elyse’s song.

Bradbury’s story is set on Venus in a dystopian future where the sun emerges once every seven years, and for only one golden hour. We follow a group of school children who are forever trapped indoors, who spend time daily under sun lamps. The skies are perpetually grey and rainy. Most of the children have never seen the sun and of those who have, none of them remember what it’s like, with the exception of one new student, Margot. Margot arrived from Earth only five years earlier and the other children are jealous of her. Only Margot remembers the sensation of the sun. Collectively, the children count down the weeks, days, hours until the sun’s appearance, but it is Margot who is most excited. Moments before the sun’s arrival, the teacher steps out. A bully tricks Margot into believing the sun isn’t coming, and in that created confusion, he and the other children push Margot into a utility closet and lock the door. A moment later, the sky lightens, the teacher returns to summon her students, who run outside in ecstasy, and they forget Margot completely. Margot’s muffled screams and bangs on the locked door go unheard. She is abandoned, left behind.

Day after day, Elyse in my lap, I played her tune. I guided her fingers to the crank and helped her turn the dial, but her fingers would alight, splay outward, as though the handle were hot to the touch. Grasping was beyond her skill set. I wanted badly for her to use the music box the way it was meant to be used. Her chubby hands pushed the toy up into her face, and she brought the crank to her mouth. The only sound was the clang of the music box dropping to the floor. I wanted desperately to hear her song, the way it should be played.

I cradled Elyse in my arms. Playtime and storytime had ended. The sun descended in one fell swoop into the earth. The slack weight of Elyse’s being pressed against my breast. With one deft finger, I broke her latch; one tear of milk ran from the corner of her wet mouth. I transported her limp body to the soft cotton mattress of her crib, laid a blanket over her torso. Her hands were cupped by her face like half moons, wispy hair curled around the backs of her ears. I smoothed two fingers along the creases of her forehead. The motion soothed her. Then I bent over the crib railing to kiss her plump cheek, careful not to wake her.

She remained a baby much longer than most babies, which I both appreciated and loathed. The contradictory feelings were like nostalgia for a past that never was, hope for a future that would not be.

In the original short story “All Summer in a Day,” as readers we are with the narrator and the school children outside, witnessing their jubilation at the sun’s return, the rapid growth of the flowers, the planet awakening. We don’t experience Margot’s perspective. But in the film version, we see Margot sitting on the floor, scrunching her knees into her chest, sobbing, holding herself. A crack in the door filters in a shaft of light that eventually fades away, and we know, as Margot does, that she has missed the sun. The sun was taken from her.

I will never forget viewing this scene as a child, the shaft of sunlight withdrawing and the sense of injustice burning in my chest. I felt that child’s agony as viscerally as if it were my own. That scene represented two of the saddest things I could imagine: to be excluded and to miss out on the sun.

Waiting for Elyse to reach a developmental milestone is like seven years of waiting for the sun to emerge. When the moment comes, the effect is a ray of sunshine in an otherwise grey world. The golden hour is pure celebration, light. The experience isn’t the same with my other children, inhabitants of Earth. They are expected to reach milestones. I celebrate them too, of course I do, but it isn’t the same. As neurotypical children, they bask in summer light all season long, as every child should, while, societally, Elyse shivers in winter’s eternal darkness. With her, I must live all of summer in a day.

*I Don’t Do Disability And Other Lies I’ve Told Myself* by Adelle Purdham. Published by Dundurn Press.

More about I Don’t Do Disability and Other Lies I’ve Told Myself:

A raw and intimate portrait of family, love, life, relationships, and disability parenting through the eyes of a mother to a daughter with Down syndrome.

With the arrival of her daughter with Down syndrome, Adelle Purdham began unpacking a lifetime of her own ableism.

In a society where people with disabilities remain largely invisible, what does it mean to parent such a child? And simultaneously, what does it mean as a mother, a writer, and a woman to truly be seen?

The candid essays in I Don’t Do Disability and Other Lies I’ve Told Myself glimmer with humanity and passion, and explore ideas of motherhood, disability, and worth. Purdham delves into grief, rage, injustice, privilege, female friendship, marriage, and desire in a voice that is loudly empathetic, unapologetic, and true. While examining the dichotomies inside of herself, she leads us to consider the flaws in society, showing us the beauty, resilience, chaos, and wild within us all.

More about Adelle Purdham:

Adelle Purdham is a writer, educator, and parent disability advocate. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of King’s College and teaches creative writing at Trent University. Adelle lives with her family in her hometown of Nogojiwanong (Peterborough), Ontario.