Langston Hughes Was Writing About Big D

There are very few things better in the entire state of Georgia than Big D's bed. Giant, king-sized, four-poster---It's just the right amount of firm and always has the exact right amount of pillows.

Best of all, it's big enough for Mom, my sister and me to pile into to watch television, play Scrabble or just hang out and visit.

And we do, almost ever single time we stay over at D's house.

But, no matter how late it gets or how big and comfortable her bed is, my sister and I rarely sleep in it for just one reason:

Big D snores.

For such a small person, she could easily pass, on a particularly good night, as the subject of a Langston Hughes poem, specifically one called "Morning After."*

But right now, I sit in her hospital room and listen to her snore, tonight much more faintly than usual, I love the sound.

She's had a tough day.

The surgeries were long and brutal, but went the best they possibly could. All the cancer has been removed. The lymph nodes are clear. And the initial phase of the reconstruction went well.

The next few weeks and months of recovery are going to be tough, starting with tomorrow.

We won't know for sure what, if any, the follow-up treatment will be until the pathology report comes back next week.

But right now, today, everything sounds about the best it can.




*Morning After
By Langston Hughes

I was so sick last night I
Didn’t hardly know my mind.
So sick last night I
Didn’t know my mind.
I drunk some bad licker that
Almost made me blind.

Had a dream last night I
Thought I was in hell.
I drempt last night I
Thought I was in hell.
Woke up and looked around me—
Babe, your mouth was open like a well.

I said, Baby! Baby!
Please don’t snore so loud.
Baby! Please!
Please don’t snore so loud.
You jest a little bit o’ woman but you
Sound like a great big crowd.