I can't think of anything to say that won't sound like platitudes, but I read your newsletter every day and it moves me and stays with me long after I have clicked away from the page. Despite your feelings of despair, you are adding value and meaning to the lives of strangers, so, selfish though it may be of us to ask, please carry on x
Oh my god Hanif. That must have scared you and everyone else so badly!!! Chew more in future okay!!!
Today is a big step. I'm not surprised your feeling low. Don't look at this next part as a whole job. You only need to get through one day at a time. Work hard, rest well, eat and drink well. Cry and shout if you need too. One day. At a time.
I must warn you. Rehab is slow and boring. And you often feel like things aren't happening quickly enough. Have patience. Nobody is letting go.
I tried to send you an email, but it bounced back, so I’m writing here instead.
My wife heard what had happened to you on the World Service - she listens to the radio all night - and she told me as soon as I woke up. Since then, I’ve been thinking about you every single day.
I’ve always seen you as brave and mischievous - those two qualities, weirdly, above all others. I can see them in your recent posts as well. That courage, that sense of mischief. You’re in my heart, Hanif. You’re very special.
I don’t know when you’re returning to London, and whether you’ll want visitors, but I’d love to come and see you, if that’s okay. In the meantime, I’ll go on thinking about you, and that kind of thinking’s close to praying, which you might or might not believe in, but it can’t do any harm, can it.
Sending you a really big hug, and lots of love, and I know you can’t send strength, that makes no sense, but I would if it was possible -
Hanif, wishing you all the best from Ireland. I’m currently reading to Sir with Love, a suggestion you made in an interview with the Guardian. Only just started it but comparing it with Sam Selvon’s Lonely Londoners, a brilliant book which I’m sure you’re well familiar with.
Tiny morsels, chewing rather than inhaling, the right pipe. And yes, it really is rather easy to die. It's hard to find the right words to say in these situations. Hope and patience can be challenging even for the strongest of people. I hope that you have both of these in plentiful supply. We are totally pulling for you! Be frustrated, yes, but with the positive aim of recovering as best you can rather than the negative of dragging yourself down.
And now, a rhyme on patience I heard as a child, "Patience is a virtue. Virtue is a grace. Grace is a little child, who would not wash her face."
Thank you, and your family for sharing this diary with us. Sending love, and hopes for healing.
You’ve had your bad day - they lay in wait or is it weight either does. Read about you again in The Guardian today - there’s so much happened to you and more to come - I would say just take the moment and then the one after that ⭐️I think being upright will help you ⭐️Thank you for making such a giant effort in writing this (via Carlos ) have faith tomorrow will be different ⭐️
Today I’ve mostly recharged and spent time listening to a book (Dubliners by James Joyce read by Andrew Scott) watching a sad film (Beautiful Boy) that forces me to consider what I would do if either of my boys progressed on to hard drugs. I take pain meds each day so they’re used to seeing me lose days to morphine and I worry their norm is one which might encourage them to try. So I suggest they both watch the film. My other job is being a comfortable sleep spot for two of my cats, Leo and Bette. They’re both on their fourth or fifth lives by now - they’re little walking miracles after surviving fights, bleach attack (Leo) and RTA (Bette) In fact one vet suggested we put Bette down and I told her that it was just as well my parents didn’t say that when I was knocked over and she’s survived to tell the tale. It’s been stormy today so the cats are inside hiding. With two teenage boys, the house gets more like a student house every day - breakfast burritos are their favourite snack to cook at the moment any time of day or night. When I was in hospital my parents would sneak treats in for me. I’m sure Isabella is on it. Get her to bring in all your favourites! My neighbour used to send in her home made onion bhajis. I was a skinny little thing back then so I was very thankful of their gifts. Shame we can’t send you a Deliveroo😉x
Take care and I hope you’ve had a better day in the new place.
As an occupational therapist who works mainly with children, many who are unable to move or communicate, I always give them as much dignity and benefit of the doubt that they know much more than people think they do. I see it in their eyes. Part of my clinical training was in acute rehab. I witnessed much of what you write about with the patients and their families in the early days after life-altering strokes, quadriplegia, burns, paraplegia, traumatic brain injury…so many ways to derail the carefully choreographed lives we piece together for ourselves. I wish you well as you work to reconnect those neural connections that can be rejoined-one baby step at a time
The world needs you as a human and a writer. I hope you feel better tomorrow and I am praying that the new hospital can start to help you regain feeling and movement. And even if you don't feel better you will eventually, I believe the wheel of fortune will turn. Thinking of you all, v, x.
I started reading this today. I’m so sorry about what’s happened to you and so very grateful you are sharing your experience. We humans resist confronting the tragic, the uncomfortable aspects of our experience, like illness, war and death. Your writing gives me courage to accept and engage with what is hard and difficult. I include you in my prayers.
Dear Hanif, I hope you are feeling better. Forgive me if I am missing the wood for the trees here. But re the Proust translation -- assuming we are talking about into English -- there are only two complete ones, as far as I know. The first is the original by Scott Moncrieff, to whom every Proustian owes such a debt. (Technically not a complete translation, in that someone else did the final volume.) The second is the "compilation" Penguin Classics edition, in which each volume was assigned to a different translator. There are other incomplete translations by other hands.
CKSM has been issued in successive emendations and tidyings-up. I am reading one of these at present, that by Willam C Carter. I like this one because it has notes in the margin. (Unfortunately this makes the volumes large and heavy.) This is my second traversal of the cycle -- I am not reading anything else until I finish it. I hope to make it to the end. (I am a stage 4 cancer patient.) Whichever one your friend chooses, they will be alternately infuriated, bored, and bewitched by this book as by no other.
I can't think of anything to say that won't sound like platitudes, but I read your newsletter every day and it moves me and stays with me long after I have clicked away from the page. Despite your feelings of despair, you are adding value and meaning to the lives of strangers, so, selfish though it may be of us to ask, please carry on x
Oh my god Hanif. That must have scared you and everyone else so badly!!! Chew more in future okay!!!
Today is a big step. I'm not surprised your feeling low. Don't look at this next part as a whole job. You only need to get through one day at a time. Work hard, rest well, eat and drink well. Cry and shout if you need too. One day. At a time.
I must warn you. Rehab is slow and boring. And you often feel like things aren't happening quickly enough. Have patience. Nobody is letting go.
Hello dear Hanif -
I tried to send you an email, but it bounced back, so I’m writing here instead.
My wife heard what had happened to you on the World Service - she listens to the radio all night - and she told me as soon as I woke up. Since then, I’ve been thinking about you every single day.
I’ve always seen you as brave and mischievous - those two qualities, weirdly, above all others. I can see them in your recent posts as well. That courage, that sense of mischief. You’re in my heart, Hanif. You’re very special.
I don’t know when you’re returning to London, and whether you’ll want visitors, but I’d love to come and see you, if that’s okay. In the meantime, I’ll go on thinking about you, and that kind of thinking’s close to praying, which you might or might not believe in, but it can’t do any harm, can it.
Sending you a really big hug, and lots of love, and I know you can’t send strength, that makes no sense, but I would if it was possible -
Rupert xxx
Hanif, wishing you all the best from Ireland. I’m currently reading to Sir with Love, a suggestion you made in an interview with the Guardian. Only just started it but comparing it with Sam Selvon’s Lonely Londoners, a brilliant book which I’m sure you’re well familiar with.
Tiny morsels, chewing rather than inhaling, the right pipe. And yes, it really is rather easy to die. It's hard to find the right words to say in these situations. Hope and patience can be challenging even for the strongest of people. I hope that you have both of these in plentiful supply. We are totally pulling for you! Be frustrated, yes, but with the positive aim of recovering as best you can rather than the negative of dragging yourself down.
And now, a rhyme on patience I heard as a child, "Patience is a virtue. Virtue is a grace. Grace is a little child, who would not wash her face."
Thank you, and your family for sharing this diary with us. Sending love, and hopes for healing.
You’ve had your bad day - they lay in wait or is it weight either does. Read about you again in The Guardian today - there’s so much happened to you and more to come - I would say just take the moment and then the one after that ⭐️I think being upright will help you ⭐️Thank you for making such a giant effort in writing this (via Carlos ) have faith tomorrow will be different ⭐️
Good evening Hanif,
Today I’ve mostly recharged and spent time listening to a book (Dubliners by James Joyce read by Andrew Scott) watching a sad film (Beautiful Boy) that forces me to consider what I would do if either of my boys progressed on to hard drugs. I take pain meds each day so they’re used to seeing me lose days to morphine and I worry their norm is one which might encourage them to try. So I suggest they both watch the film. My other job is being a comfortable sleep spot for two of my cats, Leo and Bette. They’re both on their fourth or fifth lives by now - they’re little walking miracles after surviving fights, bleach attack (Leo) and RTA (Bette) In fact one vet suggested we put Bette down and I told her that it was just as well my parents didn’t say that when I was knocked over and she’s survived to tell the tale. It’s been stormy today so the cats are inside hiding. With two teenage boys, the house gets more like a student house every day - breakfast burritos are their favourite snack to cook at the moment any time of day or night. When I was in hospital my parents would sneak treats in for me. I’m sure Isabella is on it. Get her to bring in all your favourites! My neighbour used to send in her home made onion bhajis. I was a skinny little thing back then so I was very thankful of their gifts. Shame we can’t send you a Deliveroo😉x
Take care and I hope you’ve had a better day in the new place.
Love Kate x
One day at a time... such an important, powerful suggestion
As an occupational therapist who works mainly with children, many who are unable to move or communicate, I always give them as much dignity and benefit of the doubt that they know much more than people think they do. I see it in their eyes. Part of my clinical training was in acute rehab. I witnessed much of what you write about with the patients and their families in the early days after life-altering strokes, quadriplegia, burns, paraplegia, traumatic brain injury…so many ways to derail the carefully choreographed lives we piece together for ourselves. I wish you well as you work to reconnect those neural connections that can be rejoined-one baby step at a time
The world needs you as a human and a writer. I hope you feel better tomorrow and I am praying that the new hospital can start to help you regain feeling and movement. And even if you don't feel better you will eventually, I believe the wheel of fortune will turn. Thinking of you all, v, x.
Thank you for giving me a few laugh-out-loud moments in this first few writings🎶💕🌼🇺🇦
Thank you for your honesty.
You are weathering change as well as any. Go easy on the fish!
What translation of Proust did you suggest?
I started reading this today. I’m so sorry about what’s happened to you and so very grateful you are sharing your experience. We humans resist confronting the tragic, the uncomfortable aspects of our experience, like illness, war and death. Your writing gives me courage to accept and engage with what is hard and difficult. I include you in my prayers.
Dear Hanif, I hope you are feeling better. Forgive me if I am missing the wood for the trees here. But re the Proust translation -- assuming we are talking about into English -- there are only two complete ones, as far as I know. The first is the original by Scott Moncrieff, to whom every Proustian owes such a debt. (Technically not a complete translation, in that someone else did the final volume.) The second is the "compilation" Penguin Classics edition, in which each volume was assigned to a different translator. There are other incomplete translations by other hands.
CKSM has been issued in successive emendations and tidyings-up. I am reading one of these at present, that by Willam C Carter. I like this one because it has notes in the margin. (Unfortunately this makes the volumes large and heavy.) This is my second traversal of the cycle -- I am not reading anything else until I finish it. I hope to make it to the end. (I am a stage 4 cancer patient.) Whichever one your friend chooses, they will be alternately infuriated, bored, and bewitched by this book as by no other.