for my mother

I wrote this a few years ago, while my mother was still living. It was written in first person, as if I was her. Just trying to think of how she must have felt, while struggling with her alzheimer's.

for my mother

I woke to a wobble-eyed frown,

your Thanksgiving - a joke to me.

My useless hands and tremors

weave inside me like lead ropes, 

seizing me, constant.

My mind- starts and stops

working.

I remember it all and

nothing

together, in a tremulous barrage

of nothing

that makes sense.

But my heart still loves.

It remains

a puddle in my chest

flooding

the length of my stiff body, 

aching

to break out of it's worthless shell.

And my words

stiff and stuck

behind the brick of my tongue

forming useless words

that once said

so much.

-November 29th, 2013

Author's Note

It's been almost 1 year since I lost my mom to this terrible disease.

Reviews

[Tate Morgan]

I am sorry to hear this. I too lost a parent my father a year ago. Though unlike yours My father seemed to want to go. In the end we have to go on for those we love. i hear my own father in my sons voice and his father in mine. We are our parents in many ways May you find peace/

[Samuel Dickens]

This packs quite a punch. When young, I was quite indifferent towards the aged and their struggles with the ravages of time. Now the years are showing me in a most brutal way how foolish and dumb I was. (easily confused, memory loss, trouble concentrating, etc) You describe very well the frustration and horror of watching one's self erode from within.
I'm very sorry to hear of your loss, and especially in light of the unthinkable way in which it happened.