A soupçon of perspective

A footnote to the events of last week which have curtailed my blogging somewhat: When the Resident Fan Boy finally was admitted to the Neurology Ward after 24 hours in Emergency, he had a room-mate who had recently been transferred from Intensive Care. He was a young man, late teens or early twenties, who had been thrashed at a Hallowe'en party. I never actually saw him, as the curtains were drawn around his bed. All I could see and hear were his family's and his pregnant girlfriend's family's comings and goings, plus the occasional expletives. The girlfriend's mum came out to apologize, and I assured her I'd heard worse. When the family left for a dinner break, the RFB and and I continued to chat. Every few minutes, the young man would ask us to be quiet. He wasn't rude, but it was smack in the middle of visiting hours, and I'm afraid I flipped a bird in the direction of the curtains. It wasn't until later that I realized that the young man had no idea of what time it was, and that for all he knew, the Resident Fan Boy and I were gabbing late into the night.

For the remainder of his brief stay, my husband had quite a few exchanges with his neighbour, usually en route to the washroom:
"Did my family come to see me last night?"
"Yes, they did."
(Fifteen minutes later.)
"Did my family come to see me last night?"
"Yes, they were all here."
"Did they speak to me?"

When the Resident Fan Boy was safely home in the bosom of his own family, we often spoke of this and shook our heads at how bad it could have been for us, and wondered what the future held for a father-to-be whose short-term memory had been beaten out of him. We mulled over this until last Thursday. That's when his obituary appeared.