Laughing bearded figure with OMG and LOL lettering

I'm writing this on the back of a bed chart because the night sister has confiscated the good paper again, so forgive the state of it. You'll never guess what turned up on Ward 9 on Tuesday. Mr Okafor's grandson, a lad of nineteen with more ink on his arms than sense, had drawn on the whiteboard a bearded fellow with his arms folded, roaring with laughter, and written OMG across the top and LOL underneath. Sister Pryce went white, then went off to find the spray cleaner.

Half the ward thought it was blasphemous, and the other half, the ones who'd been awake since four, thought it was the funniest thing they'd seen since the lift broke. Mr Okafor himself laughed until his oxygen mask fogged up, and said his grandfather would have wanted it left alone. So it stayed, and we stood in the corridor at two in the morning looking at a laughing man in black marker, wondering who had given him permission to be so cheerful.

What I keep coming back to is this. At six, when the porters changed shift and the windows went grey, the boy had added two little crosses either side, neat as stitches, as if to say he hadn't meant any harm. Sister Pryce didn't rub them out. She said nothing at all, just tapped the board twice and went to do her obs.

Write when you can. Tell Dad the sweet shop still sells the sherbet lemons.

Love, Carol