small frail and pale
your pajama'd frame
visit after visit
you appeared much the same
not much difference
not much going on between the ears
and all too vacant in the eyes
(I held back my tears)
but yet your heart kept beating
and your hands and legs moved
a marionette
who is engineering the motion
without the emotion
all this fractious action only serves
not too soothe
I feel the faint warmth in your bony hands
but sense no recognition
no stirrings in your land
but
I will wait until there is cognition
I will wait until I can barely wait no more
til all the others have failed to come to your door
I will wait patiently
until one day the day arrived,
and I entered back within
into the temporary kind of tomb you were living in
the Sisters all had tended to you tenderly
had conversations with all the residents though
words were rarely returned
it was the most silent place I had ever been in
the only noises being
talking heads on the television
and the desperation in the voices of visitors
you sat there with your hair now combed by others
the curls still a-tangle,
your body angled to absorb noises
from the surrounding room
you looked up into me
and across your face a smile took bloom
and you called me "Missy"
my heart leapt for joy and I reached out for you
nearly crushing your frail strength under your nightgown
I said "Mom! So very nice to have you back....
but it was better than nice could ever be..."
You looked momentarily puzzled and replied:
"Where have I been?"
I answered: "what matters is you're back, again."
Copyright July 23 2012 edging near your birth date.All Rights Reserved By Author
My Mom didn't live all that long after her stay in the nursing home...she lived, maybe,
for another 7 months and died on the 19th of December and also
before her 70th birthday... an age I do not consider to be old age.
I cannot stop missing her. My Dad died the year before. (They were divorced) It has been
a dis-orienting and oddly painful thing to be an orphan at this stage of my life.