Pain

"One of the infant class I am

With little, easy lessons, set

In a great book; the higher class

Have harder ones than I, and yet

I find mine hard, and can't restrain

My tears while studying thus with Pain"

I had to go to hospital today, after a couple of days of worrying about the increasing pain in my chest and ribcage. My doctor had told me she was concerned about a blood clot in my lung which was a terrifying thought. 

Luckily it isn't a blood clot. It's pleurisy. I say 'luckily' because even though it hurts like hell, there were people there today who will have 'harder lessons than I'. Hospitals are so filled with pain it is palpable; but if this year has taught me anything its that it undoubtedly goes hand in hand with love. To quote a couple more stanzas from my childhood favourite...

There are two Teachers in the school,

One has a gentle voice and low,

And smiles upon her scholars, as

She softly passes to and fro.

Her name is Love; 'tis very plain

She shuns the sharper teacher, Pain.

Or so I sometimes think; and then,

At other times, they meet and kiss,

And look so strangely like, that I

Am puzzled to tell how it is,

Or whence the change which makes it vain

To guess if it be--Love or Pain.

(from 'What Katy Did' - Susan M Coolidge)