Being ill

or regressing to childhood

Why is it that, even though I’m 50 years old, when I’m ill I still default to wanting my mum to look after me?

I am too ill to do a full proper illustration, but this is the very rough sketch I drew in a somewhat feverish state last night before attempting to get back to sleep propped up on the sofa because lying down makes me cough really really badly.

Maybe one day I’ll work it up into something proper, but I kind of like it as it is, because it’s a little moment of me remembering how it felt to be looked after by mum, all those years ago. (Actually, she still would always offer to look after me whenever I was ill, even when she was far from well herself.)

I don’t think I actually got to have food in bed. Pretty sure I got sweet tea in bed and maybe Marmite broth, but not actually food, because… crumbs. And the tray I drew here (one of those ones with a cushion underneath it – they’re sooooo good) I don’t think we had when I was a kid at all, but obviously now I would want food in bed, thank you! Who cares about crumbs, when I can be all cosy in my bed?

I would always have a book, however ill I was (currently near to finishing Andrea Levy’s Fruit of the Lemon).

And we never got proper tissues – it was always loo roll. I think we would maybe very occasionally get a box of Kleenex if our noses got really really sore. And she would be very annoyed that I was just piling up the used tissue on the bed, instead of putting it in a bin (I may (a) get annoyed at my kids for doing exactly the same and (b) have piled up quite a few dirty tissues myself over the last few days).

Sweet tea was the default drink. Oh! Actually, it could also have been hot lemon and honey. Now I want hot lemon and honey, except I am pretty sure we don’t have any honey. Maybe agave syrup would work just as well.

And the food? Heinz tinned macaroni cheese. Or sometimes soft boiled eggs cut up in a bowl. But usually the tinned macaroni cheese. Every now and then, when I’m feeling especially rotten, I’ll try it. But it’s really really hideous and does not have the soothing effect it should. (The Co-op microwave ready-meal macaroni cheese is quite good though. Or just some slightly overcooked pasta of any kind with butter and salt and maybe a bit of cheese.)

Anyway, I’m not really ill enough to need looking after, however nice it would be, and I have work to get on with. And these memories have looked after me and comforted me somewhat in themselves. But first a bowl of hot soup, and maybe some banana custard. Because I don’t have the energy to wait for pasta to boil.

Anyone else feel the need to be looked after by their parents when they’re ill? Surely it’s not that unusual?