Tidying the study, a place
where all books and memories come to rest,
I find a brightly painted rough paper bowl,
red and blue, used as a hat in dressing up games.
It has a brim, just like a hat.
Something for the patient to hold I guess
while bringing up what the stomach can no longer bear.
Your Grandsons saw a pile of them
waiting ready for use at your hospital bedside,
used them for play in the ward,
took several home over those long months,
painted them, called them “Grandad’s hats”,
thought them a great amenity.
Of course the younger one was hardly complicit,
he was busy learning to crawl,
up and down the long row of beds he would travel
bringing smiles to all as he wavered,
mimicking the siren call of the ambulances
that rush to hospital with a precious cargo
full of dread and pain.
We almost lived in the ward that autumn
grew to know the other inhabitants,
the nurses who made sure the floors were safe for crawling,
the Physio who delighted in having a ex-athlete to train.
You were called their miracle,
recovering so well from a disabling stroke that pinioned you in the car
that changed all our lives in a tearing moment.
Then you survived a sudden heart failure
and a night when we were told you would not see dawn.
I sit, holding this bowl-hat relic,
turning it through my hands
this link to your eventual recovery,
although we have lost you since.
I kiss it tenderly and smile.
Copyright © 2022 Kim Whysall-Hammond
The Cheesesellers Wife 