THALYDOMIDE:

He sat upon a bench on the marine parade,

Looking out at sea where pretty boats laid,

A good looking man with a very pleasant face,

He was nicely dressed with his shoes well laced,

People walked past him without nod nor glance,

Except for the children who glimpsed askance,

 Nodding, I sat down beside him to rest awhile,

“Good-morning, may I?” I said & gave him a smile,

Shyly he lowered his head & mumbled a greeting,

And moved up an inch to give me more seating,

While chatting, I noticed this man had no arms,

Yet he was so good-looking with so many charms,

An old man approached us with a little grey dog,

He was small & wore a name-tag calling him “Fog”,

“What a lovely name”, said my new benched friend,

I bent to pat the pup on his little plump rear end,

The little dog put his paw on my bench-friend´s knee,

Begging for a loving caress with a cute & whining plea,

Down the young man´s face ran a tear, but he smiled,

“I´m so sorry little chap, no pats from me. Thalidomide.

My mother, who was a nurse in the 40s, 50s & 60s. When she was pregnant with her first child, me, she suffered terrible morning sickness. She then miscarried her 2^nd child a few years later before falling pregnant again with her 3^rd child, my brother. While pregnant she again suffered terrible morning sickness & was often bed-ridden with it. She went to the doctor who recommended this wonderful “so called” wonder drug, thalidomide. She brought the medicine home with her & put it into the medicine cabinet, planning to start the treatment with the next bout of sickness. She would stagger into the bathroom with a glass of water at the ready, tip out the pills into her hand, look at them, look at herself in the mirror & then put the pills back into the bottle without taking them & stagger back to bed with dry toast & black tea instead. She never took one pill & my brother was born whole & hearty. Years later the world saw the effects of this terrible drug thalidomide. We knew families who had been affected by this drug & it is heartbreaking. I often asked my mother why she didn’t take those pills & she just answered, “it just didn´t feel right”.