Getting Better: Life lessons on going under, getting over it, and getting through it

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I’ll give myself a mark, shall I?” he says. “Right, fair enough. No, I think this is quite a good thing to do actually. Like they did at the Beeb. Every now and then you have to do a little…” In a moment of desperation, as she watched “the shadow of death” cross his face, his wife took a reading of his oxygen levels on equipment she’d loaned from a neighbour who was a GP. Comedian Cariad Lloyd said of this book that it’s “like having a cup of tea and a chat with Michael himself”, and I’d have to agree. There’s no ego here, no ulterior motive, and he’s not trying to prove anything. It’s just him talking about his own experience and how he might be able to help others, and its just warming, humorous, silly, natural, and above all, honest. Really honest. And we all need that. Talk to a member of staff at the auditorium entrance if you have a disability that means you can’t queue, or you need extra time to take your seat. They can arrange priority entry for you as soon as the doors open.

Happy birthday,” one entry said. “It’s been so lovely to help look after you today. You’ve been popular.” The entry continues to describe the events of the day, including a rendition of Happy Birthday from 15 ICU staff who surrounded his bed. It’s bewildering,” Rosen says, when I ask about his parents’ response. “It’s in the book, really, because I’m looking at how they coped with that trauma.” Rosen grew up in a flat in Pinner, northwest London; both of his parents were teachers. He describes his mother as “in many ways extraordinary”. Of her refusal to discuss Alan, he says, “It’s incredibly gutsy, but at the same time quite worrying that she thought she couldn’t, or shouldn’t, mention it.” Rosen never quizzed his mother on the issue; she died at 56. “She wasn’t a hard woman. She was the soft one, hardly ever got angry with us, whereas the old man sometimes lost his rag. But there must have been some inner grit to make that decision. We would now think that it’s not a great idea – the general consensus seems to be, ‘OK, you don’t have to let it all hang out, but you can say it, you can talk about it.” I did at first assume it would be a follow up from this book, documenting more about his recovery from COVID-19, and it is to a point, but it’s also about his life, the difficult things he’s had to go through and what lessons he has learned through them. Michael will be in conversation with Marianne Levy, author of Don't Forget to Scream: Unspoken Truths About Motherhood. In Getting Better, he shares his story and the lessons he has learned along the way. Exploring the roles that trauma and grief have played in his own life, Michael investigates the road to recovery, asking how we can find it within ourselves to live well again after - or even during - the darkest times of our lives. Moving and insightful, Getting Better is an essential companion for anyone who has loved and lost, or struggled and survived.Michael recounted how a nurse created a playlist of songs curated by his family and would play it to him while in his coma. He said: “I can’t explain how kind and lovely that is.” I guess I have sad thoughts every day. But I try not to be overcome by them’: Michael Rosen. Photograph: Pål Hansen/The Observer Michael said how this reflects the sacrifice it took to write the diary, and reaffirms that nursing is a human business, that requires a human touch.

He visits schools with this one-man show to enthuse children with his passion for books and poetry. In 2007, Rosen was appointed Children’s Laureate, a role which he held until 2009. While Laureate, he set up the Roald Dahl Funny Prize. What followed was months on the wards. He was put into an induced coma for 40 days, and then underwent weeks of rehab and recovery. No,” he says. “It’s different. Sometimes he’s wearing clothes I’ve forgotten about, so I wake up and go, ‘Oh my God, I remember that shirt!’”For step-free access from the Queen Elizabeth Hall Slip Road off Belvedere Road to the Queen Elizabeth Hall auditorium seating (excluding rows A to C) and wheelchair spaces in the Rear Stalls, plus Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer and the Purcell Room, please use the Queen Elizabeth Hall main entrance. In Getting Better, he shares his story and the lessons he has learned along the way. Exploring the roles that trauma and grief have played, Michael investigates the road to recovery, asking how we can find it within ourselves to live well again after - or even during - the darkest times of our lives.

Exploring the roles that trauma and grief have played in his own life, Rosen looks at the road to recovery, asking how we can find it within ourselves to live well again after – even during – the darkest times.Yes,” he nods, and goes on, “I don’t know how other people describe bereavement, but I always think of the thoughts as swirling, a bit swirly-whirly.” Michael said he couldn’t “fathom the devotion” that the nursing staff had. He told the audience: “Your profession saved my life and the lives of thousands of other people. Thank you.” I notice on Rosen’s desk an unframed photograph of a young man. Rosen swivels to look. “That’s him,” he says, “not all that long before he died.” He points to a cardboard box on which is scrawled the word HELMET, and I wonder what else of Eddie might be crammed into this den, out of sight. In Getting Better, Rosen implies that coping is an everyday practice – we are coping even when we are unaware we are coping, and perhaps especially in those moments. Partway through our conversation I ask Rosen, “How have you coped?” hoping he might share some strategies, though he misunderstands the question.

Throughout it all, a patient diary was kept by the nursing staff caring for him, where they wrote notes about his health, recovery, and their hopes for him to get better. In our lives, terrible things may happen. Michael Rosen has grieved the loss of a child, lived with debilitating chronic illness, and faced death itself when seriously unwell in hospital. In spite of this he has survived, and has even learned to find joy in life in the aftermath of tragedy.

Damian Barr’s Literary Salon tempts the world’s best writers to read exclusively from their latest greatest works and share their own personal stories. Star guests include Jojo Moyes, John Waters, Yaa Gyasi, Mary Beard, Diana Athill and Louis de Bernières—all in front of a live audience at leading glamorous locations world-wide. Our London home is the Savoy. Suave salonnière Damian Barr is your host. Please register for the livestream via the link below. If you are planning on attending in-person, there is no need to register. There is no fix, but he details the slow process of finding a voice that allows him to talk about Eddie, aided by a child asking him a question about his son at a talk. He subsequently wrote about the experience in Sad Book (2004), illustrated by Quentin Blake. More than 20 years on, he finds that Eddie is “there, he’s in me, he’s around me … Is he ‘at rest’ in me and with me? Yes, I think it’s something like that.” The subtitle of the book is 'life lessons on going under, getting over it and getting through it', which reminds me of the refrain in We're going on a Bear Hunt. 'Can't go around it Can't go over it Can't go under it We have to go through it.'