My UCSF Coffee Cup

I got it on one of Aidan's hospital stays in San Francisco. I'm not sure which one. He has been there at least 5 times for month-long stays, and several other shorter stays, and the first 7 months of his life he was there pretty continuously. I have a T shirt too, actually 2 T shirts and a pair of sweats. That was the time we took Aidan to the local ER (our local ER is 50 miles away) because he had a fever and was groaning, spent several hours there, and were told that he had to go straight to San Francisco. They wanted him to go in an ambulance, but we couldn't imagine resigning him alone to one of those, so we opted to make the 4 hour drive. Aidan ended up there for a month and it was a while before Kevin could bring me my clothes, hence, the UCSF clothing. Ever since then I've kept an overnight bag in the closet for each and every trip to the ER. Though it's been so long now I think I've unpacked it again.

The coffee cup is dark blue, with the gold UCSF logo on it. You can't microwave it because of the gold, but otherwise it's a great sturdy mug. I couldn't find it online, but I did find this story about the benefits of drinking coffee -- on a coffee web site, of course. Here's a site with the logos and a couple of aerial views of the hospital he stayed at, on Parnassus Street. Tracy Lee Simmons' book about classical education Climbing Parnassus will always connote, to my husband, pushing a stroller with a bald baby -- Aidan's little brother -- up a hill that seems to be at least 45 degrees incline. If you've been there you know what he means!

The logo is fading away a bit on the cup. Aidan's experiences have faded a bit from our minds as well.... except sometimes, when they pull me in as if I was living through them again. All I have to do is visit Aidan's web page as I did yesterday to link it to here, and boom! A couple of restless days are ahead.

Seeing my darling standing in his characteristic position, both hands behind his back like Napoleon to compensate for his hemiparetic instability, wearing the football shirt he put on this morning before we woke up, is therapy though. We are awfully blessed!