# 48. A Wedged Bear in Great Tightness.
On reading a Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a fourteen-year-old boy with a fractured paw.
On the last day of Grade 8’s final exams, my younger son, after football, pickle, paddle and ping-pong; after general revelry and fierce battle with all manner of stick-like objects with which to bash sphere-like objects; after the idle banter and ferocious feasting only teenage boys can acheive, being bored, he visited a toddler’s playground with four classmates.
There, presumably after bouncing on spring riders and spinning on merry-go-rounds, two of them rode on one swing while the other two pushed. Too high, too fast, and the rest depends on which version you heard, because what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
Cut to: stretcher and hospital, cast and crutches, and an endless night, when no number of cat videos, midnight chocolate bars or paracetamol could dull the pain. At 4 am, desperate, I asked my son, shall I read to you? Like the Before Days? Okay, he said wearily, though not entirely half-heartedly.
Armed with a phone torch (so as not to wake my older son), I peered into the bookshelf in the boys’ room. Past Percy Jackson and Hamlet. Past Dog Man and Best Indian Folktales. Past the Periodic Table and The Inferno and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. Past Alice in Wonderland, El Deafo, Fantastic Mr Fox and the Trials of Apollo. And there he was. The Bear With Very Little Brain. Still wondering eternally, if it was time for a Little Something, and if he could help me with anything in any way at all?
I do not know what invisible hand led me to rouse Pooh from hibernation. I think it may have been the ghost of Motherhood Past. The one from those glorious cuddlesome bedtimes after gruelling groundhog days. Days before they could read, when I was the font of all stories, the voice of God. Days when the spines of pretty books all in a row were the only clickbait they knew. Days before 2020 and online school. Days before I had to compete with the entire Internet for my children’s attention.
But back to Pooh, the present moment, and my boy with the broken paw. Six inches taller than me, but looking small under the blankets, eyes shut, he said, go on. So I did, and then came this bit:
“Hallo, are you stuck?” he asked.
“N-no,” said Pooh carelessly. “Just resting and thinking and humming to myself.”
“Here, give us a paw.”
Pooh Bear stretched out a paw, and Rabbit pulled and pulled and pulled. …
“Ow!” cried Pooh. “You’re hurting!”
“The fact is,” said Rabbit, “you’re stuck.”
Bear began to sigh, and then found he couldn’t because he was so tightly stuck; and a tear rolled down his eye, as he said:
“Then would you read a Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness?”
You are a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness! I said to my sleepy boy. At which he smiled and nodded. And then grimaced. So I dared not stop reading for fear he would wake up all over again. So I read and I read. Out loud. From 4.00 am to 6.00 am, slowly, hypnotically, until I was sure my bigsmall son was asleep. And then, though I had to be up again at 7.30 am in service of my spiralling TO DO list, I read the rest.
So for a week Christopher Robin read that sort of book at the North end of Pooh, and Rabbit hung his washing on the South end … and in between Bear felt himself getting slenderer and slenderer. And at the end of the week Christopher Robin said, “Now!”
And I remembered. We have all been in places of Great Tightness. But as long as we have someone at our North end reading us a Sustaining Book, and someone at our South end hanging up washing, we will make it through.
So he took hold of Pooh’s front paws and Rabbit took hold of Christopher Robin, and all Rabbit’s friends and relations took hold of Rabbit, and they all pulled together. … And for a long time Pooh only said “Ow!” … And “Oh!” …And then, all of a sudden, he said “Pop!” just as if a cork were coming out of a bottle. And Christopher Robin and Rabbit and all Rabbit’s friends and relations went head-over-heels backwards … and on the top of them came Winnie-the-Pooh - free!
The next morning, my son’s pain was all but gone.
And I am not sure it was just the paracetamol.
Tara, I think this is the BEST of all the thoughts and happenings you have ever written. The simplicity of Pooh and his tribe are such a pleasure and so refreshing. Strikes a chord in all of us. Get well soon S, you'll be unstuck in no time at all. Every Day Better.
P.S. (he might pretend so he can be read to many more nights without feeling like he's too big a boy to ask for it!)
So lovely! It was my fav part too- reading at night to mohona.