By Paint Her in Color Founder, Laura Spiegel

It’s just a cold, it’s just a cough

You promise you’ll be fine

But what about the rest of us?

We’re running out of time

The chemo makes our bodies weak

We’re too young to get sick

We are immunocompromised

We don’t fall for your trick

Your sniffle here, your sneezing there

Pierce straight into our hearts

That snotty nose you just wiped clean

A dagger did impart

That cough released into your hands

Will spread with every touch

Like ghoulish fingers stretching out

To grasp us in their clutch

A cold’s not just a cold, you see,

It’s so much more than that

It’s countless pills and looming threats

Of IVs ordered stat

Please wash your hands we beg of you

It’s not a minor thing

Stay home if you have coughing fits

That like a shotgun ring

Your goal to miss no days of work

Is not an honored badge

Your child’s raised hand when roll is called

Means zilch if he feels bad

Your “No big deal” and “Just relax”

Bring tension, nerves, and fear

“I understand, I’ll help you out”

Is what we long to hear

We wish that it was not this way

We’d give most anything

To wave away concerns of germs

And all the stress they bring

Until that day, we ask of you

Think twice before you go

Outside into our world and spread

Your sickness to and fro

Pause for just a blink or two

And ask if you would still

Expose your child, your mom, your spouse

If he or she were ill

If he had cancer or MS

If chemo made her weak

If cystic fibrosis made it hard

To kick a cold with ease

Or if your child was still a babe

Too young to get vaccines

If RSV could send him south

And bring you to your knees

Would you still release your coughs

And catch them in your palms?

Would you still mask fever

With a Tylenol and move on?

I like to think our world is good

And others mean no ill

That words like this can open eyes

And hearts and minds until

There is a day when none of us

Is immunocompromised

When science works its wonders

And lifts all up with the tide

Until that day, I do have faith

That all of you will see

It’s nothing but a mother’s love

That fuels these words from me