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.

Because I’m not him!” Rosen says. “So you try not to be burdened?” I ask. “Or not to be a burden?” “Both, actually,” he says. “I guess I have sad thoughts every day. But I try not to be overcome by them.”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.” Getting Better is written in an unusual stream-of-consciousness style which can be a bit rambling and goes off on all sorts of tangents and parenthetical detours. Rosen reveals in the final chapter that this style in itself is part of his method for Getting Better.

The staff made sure he was clean shaven and presentable for the video calls with his family, as they weren’t allowed to visit at this point in the pandemic. Please register for the livestream via the link below. If you are planning on attending in-person, there is no need to register. Michael’s immortalised his experience of care in a book, Many Different Kinds of Love: a Story of Life, Death and the NHS. At RCN Congress 2022, he enthralled the audience with excerpts of the patient diaries and his reflections on the care, love and support he received from nursing staff.

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In Getting Better, Rosen describes the moment he discovered a photograph of a baby boy sitting on his mother’s knee. When he asked his father who the boy was, Rosen or his older brother, Brian, his father said neither – that it was a third son, Alan, who had died as an infant, before Rosen was born. Rosen was 10 at the time. Nobody in his family had spoken of Alan previously, there were no photographs of him in the house. And though Rosen’s father, Harold, mentioned Alan from time to time over the course of his life, Rosen never spoke about him with his mother, Connie. One nurse wrote how lovely it was to see all the photos his family had sent in of them together smiling, showing how much he’s loved. Another mentions how she got a facial response from him when she joked about the performance of his favourite football team. 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.

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.”

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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.

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.” 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. In March 2020, Michael became unwell. He was struggling to breathe and had an illness that felt like flu. He became worse each day. All this love and care was shown to him at a time when nursing staff were strained, and suffering trauma from seeing so many people die while within their care, he added. Care and devotion

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It has now been 23 years since Eddie’s death. For the most part, Rosen has succeeded in escaping incapacitation. “I’ve tried not to be burdened by it,” he says. “I talk in the book about ‘carrying the elephant’.” Rosen hands me a postcard replica of an engraving of a man struggling to carry an elephant up a hill. “I bought that in Paris,” he goes on, “and it’s a great reminder. You know, I’m not carrying an elephant. At the time I thought I was. Eddie’s dead and I’m carrying all this grief and it’s bigger than me – it’s as big as an elephant. But not any more. Even with this Covid thing, or with any of that other stuff, I’m still not carrying an elephant. So this picture, it inspires me.” For access to the Queen Elizabeth Hall auditorium seating rows A to C and wheelchair spaces in the Front Stalls, please enter via the Artists' Entrance in the Queen Elizabeth Hall Slip Road (Level 1). 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. 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. I guess I have sad thoughts every day. But I try not to be overcome by them’: Michael Rosen. Photograph: Pål Hansen/The Observer