Patty McCormack (Ada Wells)

Family died or moved away, and then Teddy started refusing to leave home.

When I tried to take him anywhere, he would bite himself or pull his hair out.

So we just stayed in after that.

A few months after Jack left, the police came to tell me he'd drank himself to death.

I started receiving his benefits along with my father's estate.

It was enough to get by.

I was blessed to have a neighbor, Ruth, and her daughter, Gina, who looked in on us regularly, brought us groceries.

We had a doctor who made house calls, and our pastor, Father Weta,

also came by until he got sick and had passed away.

But I had Teddy.

For every time he was unreachable, he was also a joy.

He had a real sense of the earth, loved tending the garden.

Sometimes he would lie down on the ground and rub the dirt all over him.

I think it made him feel connected to something.

He taught himself to play the piano.

He could listen to a song on the radio once, then play it back note for note.

It was truly a gift.

The briefest glimpse of what his life might have been like if only he... She coughs again, quite uncontrollably.