Journeys

Cherry

By Silver Spun Sand

Sun, 06 Apr 2014
  • 1269 reads
4 comments
 
Your hand shading your eyes,
you peer through the mists of time;
the evening sun, an orange ball
sits on your shoulder – haloesque
your hair seems – framing your face;
wispy, white and fine as you stand there
at the entrance to Thorpe Grange.
 
You don’t see me until I hug
your shoulders, and you say,
I never thought you’d be here.
Such a coincidence!  Do you
live here, too, and what’s more
do I...do we – your Dad and me? 
To which there is no reply.
 
A far cry from your little bungalow
in Orchard Road – this purpose-built place;
orange-bricked, multi-windowed home
from home, as it’s advertised.  But it isn’t, is it?  
Littered with corridors...with lifts; teeming 
with strangers you don’t know from Adam...
rows and rows of chintz-backed chairs
and pretty, Filipino girls in white coats.
 
I want to shake you – make you understand, 
as I’ve tried, a thousand times before.  You
couldn’t go on any longer, unable to take care
of yourself...bring things back as they were;
remind you of the whizz you’d been at crosswords, 
the artiste to top all artistes – the way you played piano.  
That, ten years ago, Dad died.
 
So, I wouldn’t bring you back, even if I could
to somewhere you wouldn’t want to be.  Instead, 
squeeze your hand – kiss the top of your head 
as one would a child in the last war – an evacuee
at the station, telling them, I’ll see you soon, 
I promise, with the train pulling away, and you 
realising you’d forgotten their teddy...the one 
you’d sewn with buttons for eyes.
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
Certificate 12
Poem
Silver Spun Sand Poems
Love
Autobiography

Comments

Submitted by Bee on

This is heartbreaking. That last line is a killer. I've walked those corridors. I could see it all - feel it.

Bee

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on

Thank you, Bee.  Very much.

Tina

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

You capture so much in these lines, Tina. Amazing what similarities, and what differences, in different tales of the ravages of dementia. I suppose reflecting the illness progressing slightly differently in each case, but also each person being a different personalityto begin with, but always sad, maybe more for loved ones and carers than the sufferer.
Your picture, as I said, captures so much. Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on

Unfortunately, within my family, I have had more than my fair share, I feel, of this devastating condition, and as you say, it takes its toll, so very cruelly, not only with the sufferer, but for the carer, likewise.    I thank you for reading, and for your words.

Tina