Life Pictures Within chosen memory
you will read hearts that I have met
within the time I have walked upon this earth.
Each story I will share
holds for me special meaning.
Each segment that I place will feature
someone I have known personally
and whom I will hold always
For whatever the reason may have been,
brief encounters, have blessed my life,
given to me wisdom, and left with me memories
that time cannot erase or find cause
to ever be forgotten. The gift of warmth,
within lives that came to me unexpectedly,
will within this series, find their voices.
Each life brought back to sweet memory
as Aspiring begins to pen their stories.
My Name Is Elizabeth
I can sometimes remember the person who was me.
As a young woman, I was like you in your today.
I led a full rich life and never really stopped
to think that one day I would be considered elderly.
Young people be aware.
The beauty of your today, may not be everlasting.
You will awaken one day to your reflection
cast upon mirrored glass and wonder
where all the years have gone.
Guard well your youth and treat it wisely.
Think clearly the direction you choose
to take in your today,
for your tomorrow's depends greatly on
how you live within your now.
For some like myself,
the journey to here has not been easy.
There has become things in life,
that I can no longer bring to memory.
Memories better left forgotten I guess,
but . . . I no longer have the choice.
Where am I today?
Well as near as I can understand,
I am in what they call
A Long Term Stay Facility.
A grouping of words that softens the phrase
Aunt Elizabeth lives in 'A Home'
I am sometimes confused,
but I know enough to know
this is NOT my home.
Someone only wanting to be kind,
asked me the other day,
if I wanted a lift home.
She thinking she could help me
to avoid the traffic jam
of so many people just as I,
moving slowly up and down the hallways.
For me, her remark brought anger.
I snapped at her that she only wanted
to take me to a room where
an uncomfortable bed awaited.
'I HAVE NO HOME!
I will more than likely live the rest of my days here.'
My family it seems have decided that I won't know if they have
been to visit me and they have stopped coming.
I do admit that I am no longer the person they knew me to be.
I am no longer the person I knew myself to be, nor do I want to be.
In a moment from now
I may not remember these few moments of painful lucidity.
To fall into a world I have never known,
perhaps the greatest blessing.
I would have felt them . . . . wouldn't I?
My family . . . Surely my family
I would somehow remember.
My days no longer seem to matter.
I sit in the same spot, staring out the same window,
that refuses to let me see what once had been.
Caregivers walk briskly past me but no one speaks my name,
or stops to give a hug, or even touch my hand briefly.
Every day the same.
Too busy to get on to the next task at hand,
to recognize I have been sitting
in the same space for hours.
Do I realize that I have become
just another body in a wheelchair,
scattered about upon shiny floors
within endless railed hallways
That give no means of escape?
Each time I get to the door
I am turned away to revisit
where I just came from.
Sometimes . . . only sometimes . . .
I think that I realize where I am in the now.
Reality can become too painfully clear.
Within those times there is no one for me.
No one to truly care that it is rarely that I smile.
Is now the time to let myself to continue to fall?
I wish for you a happy lifetime.
I wish for you to always remember
that one very special Christmas,
and the hugs of your grandchildren.
Please remember my name as well as the names
of those that I stand for.
Say a prayer for me that I can find peace
No matter where the peace may lie.
My name is Elizabeth. . .
~~Author's Notes~~
Elizabeth's likeness, was found
within Google image search.
The voice I spoke for her brought
about by observation and interaction.
I met Elizabeth, along with so many like her,
every day I would open twin doors,
to make my way down hallways
to my husband's hospital room.
Elizabeth's presence, to me
was very heart touching.
She only wanted to be noticed,
to be talked to. To have someone,
anyone, spend some time with only her,
even if it meant she did not
sometimes understand the time.
I hated to leave her there,
knowing I would probably
never see her again.
We thought the hospital where I agreed
to have my husband placed last,
was a Rehab Hospital.
There were few that was there
for recoup time and rehabilitation.
Most were like Elizabeth
in various stages of slipping away.
Two months between two different hospitals
to be told he must go to a third
before once again finding home.
How could we expect him to feel?
It was a very hard time for both of us
because he truly was not a bleat
that time to come home,
and that is all that he wanted.
He began to voice his wonderings while there,
Fearful that he could become
one of the lost souls
he passed in the halls
he himself traveled daily.
Not feeling at all well
compounded the problem.
It was a long three months for him
and probably through all of this nightmare,
was for him the worst.
Hershel is once again home,
and we would like to thank you
for your continued thoughts and prayers.
It is not easy for either of us,
but we are trying to once again adjust.
