The Blue Blanket

Here is a poem Jennie wrote, about our first 24 hour EEG test for our son's absence seizures. 

The Blue Blanket

 

The blue blanket

was there for it all.

 

I grabbed it from my son’s crib

as we headed out the door,

handed it to him in the car seat

watched as his eyes opened in delight.

 

His fingers wrapped around it in pieces

rubbing each side,

as if he could capture in motion

the nervous flickers in my mind.

 

The blanket was dragged across the office floor,

shown to the clinicians with pride

while they prepared the glue

that would attach the electrodes to his head.

 

I admire the bond between blanket and boy,

to know that the sight, smell and touch of one piece of fabric

could bring about such safety.

 

That night,

I lay by his crib while he slept,

his head wrapped like a mummy

while a machine captured the motion in his brain.

 

I watched how this boy of mine

shifted about, half-dreaming

yet always holding one hand

on that precious blue cloth.

 --------------

Jennie Linthorst is an expressive writing coach and the founder of LifeSPEAKS Poetry Therapy. She works privately with parents and caregivers of children with special needs helping them tell their stories and heal through reading and writing poetry and personal essays. Jennie coaches clients all across the country and around the world via phone, Skype, e-mail, in addition to in person meetings.  Jennie tells her own story of mothering a special needs child in her book of poems, “A Mother’s Journey”.  Her family’s story is captured in the award-winning documentary film, “Autistic-Like: Graham’s Story”.

More information is available at www.lifespeakspoetrytherapy.com and www.autisticlike.com