The Tall and the Short of It

Sandra and Bill were a couple who regularly drew people’s attention, even stares when seen walking together in the public eye. She was tall, well over six feet, and he was more than a foot and a half shorter. They met one day at the university that they both attended. She was on the women’s basketball team, and he was a big fan of the sport. Their meeting happened when in an attempt to get a ball that looked like it was going to fly out of the court she tripped and crashed into the stands where he was sitting. Fortunately for her, he was soon to graduate with honours in the medical program, so he was able to quickly get his hands on one of the carts from the medical centre. He pushed the cart with her in it and obtained for her something that lessened the pain created by the fall. Still, she would soon learn that her basketball career ended upon that day.

That began the close relationship of Sandra and Bill. It led to their eventual marriage. He became a medical researcher, and she became the coach of the basketball team that she once had led as a player. Their lives were happy ones together.

After a little more than a year she gave birth to a girl. Of course, Sandra wanted little Ethel to play her favourite sport. She was worried that their daughter might not become tall enough to play in competitive basketball. After all, her father was quite short, and his genes may cancel hers.

Ethel was born extraordinarily short, and she did not seem to grow significantly in height in her first few years. Her mother measured her height just about every day, with only minimal growth that she could see. Her husband could read the disappointment in her face each time the measuring took place.

Then One Day: ‘Potential Good News’

Then one day Bill arrived at home with a very big smile on his face. There wasn’t either a basketball practice session, neither was there a game, so he knew that his wife would be home. When he saw her, his first words were,“ I’ve got some potential good news for you my dear. I had a long conversation today with the growth specialist at work. He has developed a medicine that he firmly believes can make very short children under five become taller if they are given his medicine. He needs children to test in on, but they have been very hard to find. I suggested to him that we have a daughter that we might be willing to test his formula on.”

“So what do you think. Would you be willing to have Ethel go through such an experiment. I am willing, even though she might make me the shortest person in the family. No shame there. What do you think my dear?”

Sandra was motionless and silent for what seemed to Bill to be an extraordinarily long time. She eventually smiled then asked her husband whether she could talk to his colleague to hear what he would be doing to their daughter. Bill agreed whole heartedly. While as a scientist he believed in the value of experimentation, he did not want this to be forced upon their daughter against her will. And he wanted his wife to be knowledgeable in the pros and cons of the experiment their daughter might be going through. He did not know much about all that it involved, and he wanted to learn about all the details of the experiment himself, before they would make a decision.

At dinner that night, Sandra saw her parents giving her strange looks, so she ate everything on her plate, just in case leaving food on her plate was the reason for them monitoring her so closely. They did not say much, so she felt that she did not have to worry.

The next day, the parents told Sandra that her grandmother Sybil, her father’s mother, would be taking care of her, as her mother and father had a special meeting to go to at the university. They did not tell Sybil what the whole matter was about, as she was a very conservative woman, and definitely would not be positive about her only grandchild being experimented on, just so she could play basketball.

At the Laboratory

So Bill and Sandra went to the growth scientist’s laboratory the next day. He was in the process of injecting a girl about Sandra’s age with shots on various parts of her body. She did not cry, but she looked quite nervous, even a little scared, all the same. They could readily picture their daughter going through the same process. For the first time they wondered how brave their little girl would be in the same situation.

When this was completed, Bill asked about what his success rate was, and whether there had been any negative results. At first the man’s response was little more than a whisper, like he feared he would have to tell them some negative results.

Looking at the worried looks on their faces, he was very careful in his response. He told them that no one had been harmed, nor had he expected that there would be. So far there had only been positive results of the three children that he had experimented on.

He turned the conversation around. “So, is your daughter, Sandra, ready to ‘reach the stars?”

Bill responded by telling him that they had not yet asked her. “We just needed to find out what your study was all about before we would do that. Of course, she knows something about science because her father is a scientist, so she probably does not fear scientific experiments. We will talk to her when we get home, and then we can tell you what her decision is to be.

“That sounds good to me. I will wait for her response.”

The Passage of Time

As they drove home, they were strangely silent. Not a word was spoken, but thoughts were travelling. Both parents were actively thinking about whether they should suggest to Sandra that she take the growth drugs. Both knew that the two of them must come to an agreement before they tell her.

They did not know what to say to their daughter, so they delayed their decision for a little over a week. During that time, their daughter had not grown any taller that they could see. Still, there was indecision on their part.