JUNE 31, 2001 / DENHVOY ALVOROD MEDICAL CLINIC

Under the sheltering arms of two loving parents, Asher Delrov grew up as happy a boy as any other.

Ekaterina Delrov found him the highest regarded kindergarten in town, and - because of her high acclaim in the scientific world and elegant way with words - allowed him easy access in.

When Asher was five years old, Mrs. Delrov also identified what she thought was the best elementary school for Asher - surprisingly, not the one that all the educational magazines suggested, but one that reminded her of the elementary school she herself had attended - and gained entry for him using that same verifiable reputation.

His childhood was cheerful, mind the occasional broken bone and grounding. Sometimes, Asher didn't want to go visit Dr. Polzin, because he left each time with a sore arm from all the needles.

"Why do I have to see him?" Asher would whine, as a stern Ekaterina Delrov tugged him through the carpark of the medical clinic.

"Because, we need to know how to keep you safe, and healthy."

"But, Mama," Asher would lift his scrawny arms, displaying the pale skin and blue veins, and ignore the slight pain he got his back from doing so, "I'm perfectly healthy!"

Two weeks later, Asher was back at the Denhvoy Alvorod Medical Clinic with a fractured elbow.

It was a clean break, and Vasily didn't want his son seeing the x-ray.

But Ekaterina had faith in her son's her-ness, and smuggled him a look at the black and white images on the car ride back, two days later, after he had wires put in his arm to hold the bones in place while they grew back - and a cool-looking, camouflage-patterned cast making his arm look musclier than it was.

"Whoa," Asher looked at his cast, wide-eyed, "I have that inside of me?"

"Mm-hm," Ekaterina ruffled his hair, "And you can see it because of x-rays. Science is pretty cool, yeah?"

"Yeah!"

Mother and son high-fived.

Asher's mother was the one who taught him how to ride a bike, with her own special technique. She said, while pinching his ears, "Thank God you have good semicircular canals inside your head, Asher. They're the only reason you're not falling over every time."

After that, Asher spent hours trying to master how to say 'semicircular canals' to impress his friends with how smart he was, and please his mother - who was the smartest person he knew.

Possibly the thing he was most proud of about her: his mother knew how to multiply double digits.

The earlier hopes Ekaterina had for her son, before he was born, were being slowly reignited by the infectious fire in Asher's heart. He was a curious, inquisitive and smart boy. A future of success was lining itself up, like the shadow of a still object moving as the sun rose, a silhouette she saw behind the puzzles he completed and the drawing he made for her.

Despite his condition, Ekaterina began to hope that when the time came - when Asher knew how to take care of himself - he would find life better and worth the pain he would have to endure. She hoped that Asher would never be hindered by his disorder, or have to decline an offer to hang out with friends because, "I might get hurt."

Those hopes grew inside of her, and through Asher's second broken bone (knee fracture at six years old, fell over at the park), his longest stint in the hospital (femur fracture, skating accident on a school trip), his first double-break combo (both wrists, fell off the jungle gym monkey bars at eight years old), and the perpetual fear that came with her son's disease, Ekaterina still hoped that Asher could find happiness.

She was pleased with how he was doing so far, despite multiple fractures before he was nine years old. Because the thing she worried most about breaking were not her son's bones - though she harboured constant fear about that - but his spirit.

The visits to see Dr. Polzin became routine, until there was a tiny brown dot permanently on Asher's left forearm, where the needle always went in. The wound would heal just in time for another injection or blood sample.

This earned him major street credit at school; he got a sticker for every x-ray he had, and impressed his friends with the wrinkled grid card, with juice stains and rips, displaying twenty-one shining star stickers.

Asher, the little genius, knew he was different. He knew he was fragile, and that he had to take care of himself. Sometimes he couldn't go to theme parks with his friends, but Ekaterina and Vasily would take him to the arcade instead, and give him ice-cream whenever an opportunity left Asher behind.

He didn't mind, because ice-cream was ice-cream, no matter where it came from. In the happy bliss of his childhood, Asher never noticed his mother jump with fright every time he toppled over, and run to his side.

Ekaterina would weep every time he fell, assess him for any broken bones and kiss his forehead after saying, "Don't scare me. You're fragile."

Never did he take her words too literally.

His father always reminded him over dinner, when his mother was still at the laboratory, working on the latest Iron Man suit - that was the easiest way to explain bionics (his mother's career) to Asher, "She was very afraid to touch you in your first year. Thought you might break easily."

Apparently, from what Vasily Delrov told Asher, his mother thought he was born with pale skin and gentle limbs, susceptible to breaking if someone even breathed too hard in his direction. Papa was always the nurturer, and Mama was the provider.

But both of the boys in their family were proud of Asher's mother, though in different ways.

Asher was proud of the woman who was crazy smart and knew how to do magic science-y things; his father was proud of the toughened mother who sacrificed too much of her present for their child's future.

Asher always thought because his mother worked hard, and missed out on some major family time, that she would reach her goals.

That was what his elementary teacher told him, anyway.

Even though they were lying about hard work always being enough to achieve goals, Ekaterina had really chosen the best school for her son. Asher was in the type of environment where he still believed if he wanted it hard enough, and kept applying diligence, the sky would be the limit and his future would be great.

That wasn't always true, it turned out, despite years of working and wanting and trying. Despite Ekaterina's university all-nighters, sitting past exams, making her theses as mind-blowing as possible, working double jobs to cover her student loan - despite all this, the world was never truly a meritocracy.

No-one can really run from death once it sets its sights on you. One can avoid death with vaccines and safety procedures, but it will catch up.

Eventually.

Sickness sunk into Ekaterina's brain; once alive and teeming with ideas, motivation, every bright thing under the sun and ate and ate until it could eat no more. What was left was only a husk of the woman Asher had grown up knowing. Her body, in no way, could tell as many stories as her brain could.

What a way to leave the earth: having all your accomplishments wiped away by the passage of time.

The death of Asher's mother was premature, like his birth, and stung like a thousand whiplashes. Little Asher Delrov was pushed into a world where protection wasn't offered. He wasn't ready to understand death, loss, heartbreak at nine years old.

He was still fragile, and weak.

Ekaterina wasn't ready yet.

She deserved the world at her feet, showering her with accolades of her genius and integrity. She deserved the time and resources to design and invent the future - because Asher knew she could, she could. She deserved more than dying painfully in a hospital, plugged up to several tubes and machines, knowing that she would either wake up and face more pain, or not wake up at all.

Ekaterina Delrov deserved more than her future had planned for her.

Young Asher was in tears when, a few months after her death - the same old trauma still choking his heart at night - he wondered why the thing she loved doing most, science, couldn't save her.

She had said, "I help people, by fixing their bodies. People can walk, move and live again because the work I I help to do. It's important, and some things are more important than just one person," when Asher felt neglected by his mother for her job.

Asher's mother gave everything to her job, because indirectly, it gave everything to her family, and the world.

What Asher couldn't understand was why the world couldn't give a little back to his mother, who made superheroes with her brain, and made dinner with secret ingredients that she'd never reveal, and made life look always topped with honey.

Why couldn't she be saved?