Marilyn Stowe Blog

In the wee small hours of the morning…

In the wee small hours of the morning is the title to a song made famous by the late, great, Frank Sinatra. It was composed by David Mann and the lyrics were written by Bob Hilliard at a post midnight session at Hilliard’s home in 1955.

The song popped into my head in the early hours of this morning when I was finding it impossible to sleep.

I’ve had quite a frantic week, travelling between Yorkshire, London and Cheshirein the last three days. I had a nightmare start in London when I woke at 6.30am on the day of the TV performance to find there was no water in my apartment – the entire building had no water supply due to an electrical fault. Fortunately my husband who I telephoned in a panic reassured me, and said there was a gym nearby where I could go and shower, do my hair and so forth. But it wasn’t ideal. I shot over to the gym and then to Starbucks to get a coffee!

“Keep calm and carry on” I kept telling myself as I was dashing to the gym and back again, and I now know that if you say it often enough it works! Getting into the car to go to ITV I don’t think you could tell I’d not exactly had an ideal start to the day.

But there is actually a reason I’ve kept myself so busy. I’ve been deliberately ignoring a whopping elephant in the room. We are waiting for the results of some medical tests on one of our close family members. I’ve been operating on auto pilot since I first realised someone I care so much about is ill – I’m sure I’ve gone through all the classic stages of shock and denial that happens when you first learn about potential bad news, and keeping busy was my way of dealing with it. Except…. when there’s nothing to do but think, its then that it gets to me.

As it did, in the wee small hours of this morning.

I was lying in bed thinking about all the possibilities an ignoramus with no medical training could think about, when I heard an email ping onto my iPad, and my first thought was that I’d ignore it. I suspected it was a comment from someone overseas on this blog.

But as I kept tossing and turning, and couldn’t sleep, I thought I might as well check. I got out of bed in the dark, felt for where Id left my dressing gown, put it on and went over to the dressing table to turn on the iPad.

Sitting in the dark so as not to wake my husband, I felt quite alone. But then I got a surprise! I opened up the email and it was from another member of my family!

“Sorry to disturb you at this late hour” I read, “but I cant sleep.”

Suddenly I relaxed. I felt so much better and no longer so alone in the dark. A few emails passed between us, cheerier and more hopeful. Then we signed off. I then thought I’d answer some more emails I hadn’t got round to dealing with, answer also a few queries on the blog from people who seem just as worried as me. Then I got back into bed and went to sleep.

And checking this morning, I discovered that all across our family, other people too were lying awake, in the wee small hours, unable to sleep. Just thinking.

I’m sure there are times when you too lie awake in the wee small hours, thinking. When that happens remember this post and think about the fact that you aren’t alone.  It’s a very comforting thought to realise that we’re all just the same as each other.

Photo of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin by UNLV Libraries Digital Collections under a Creative Commons licence