The night of the banana arm, Tom and I had quite a long time to whisper and chat.  The rest of the ward might have been noisy, but weren’t going to disrespect the sleep of others.

One of our topics of conversation was his birthday, at the time only 3 weeks away.  Originally he had wanted to take an army of mates (aka the rugby team) to a trampoline park and go wild.

But when I asked him again, in a small voice, he snuggled in to me and said, ‘I just want to eat cake with my Granny and Grandpa, my lovely Grandad and Edna, you, Daddy and Willy. My family – that’s all.’

A shock and an unexpected event triggering any level of vulnerability is all you need to make you realise what is important, no matter how old you are.  So that is exactly what we did… and as the shock wore off and his confidence returned, a couple of his little mates came too.

And he had a super day with fun outdoors, family, Rogue One, far too many sweets, cake before bed and all that remains is a bedroom littered with little boys snoring and a snug full of Grandparents doing the same.

And me. Breathing.  Reflecting on the lesson of today.