A Poem for Thursday....."Antibiotics"

My mother lived alone after dad died even though she was the one who had been ill.
Looking back to when I was still living in the family home in Belfast and rebelling if not outwardly ...definitely inside...I'm thankful for this woman who was a rock formed in the fire of extremely difficult circumstances.


                  Antibiotics

She never cried, she was as solid as a rock
Except on the days she remembered her sister
And the fun they had shared in the big house.
But apart from that she was a stoic and
I knew that the winds of life would not bend her.
Except on the days we made the beds together
And she sighed as quiet tears wet her marshmallow cheeks.
A memory of her mother tucking white crisp hospital corners
Around striped ticking mattresses.
But that was all there was to it then.
I could never hope to come up to that steely reserve
And be the unmoved.
Though there were occasions when the armchair in the corner
By the fireplace seemed too big for her.
Too big, and she filled  the edges of the cushions
With lace edged hankies damp and tucked away and hidden.
Then her brother's name was whispered quietly
As if such a thing could never have happened.
Though it did, for those were the days before the miracles.
We call them antibiotics and warn our families against taking them.

Jeanie's Design

Growing up in Belfast,  we were regularly told about mum's brother and sister who died before antibiotics came into the general arena of health.

Now I'm reading the news just like everyone else, about the dangers of continual use of these medicines and I've never personally been a great one for dosing my children up with them, when they were young.

However...without them my gorgeous oldest grandgirl would not have recovered from the lung infection which has floored her recently and I would still be struggling with that dreaded...blessed ...awful... "lady thing"....cystitis!

Oh ...too much information I hear you say as you switch off!

O.K. however if there had been antibiotics in the early 30s....Jeanie my aunt, would have survived the dose of pleurisy that eventually did for her...

...and we would have had much more of this wonderful embroidery design work for which she was studying ,

 at Belfast Art College.