I always feel sad when other care partners feel bad when their parent or parents who live with dementia don’t recognize them anymore. It’s a double tragedy. The adult child feels a tremendous sense of loss and grief, and those feelings cannot help but be felt by their parent who lives with dementia because the disease, which involves losses of many kinds, also increases emotional sensitivity. That is, when we feel sad, they tend to feel sad. When we feel angry, they tend to feel angry too.
I believe the ones we love and who love us always recognize us, if not on the surface, then surely at the core. This poem is about that. I hope it may bring comfort, solace and a change of heart to those who feel despair in these kinds of situations. These 20 questions may also help.
an alzheimer parent’s poem
Dedicated to the hundreds of thousands of children who feel loss and despair when a parent who lives with dementia doesn’t recognize them.
Listen here (read below):
an alzheimer parent’s poem
©2017 punkie
i may not know your name my child
but I love you just the same
disease can make my brain misfire
my mind play silly games
sure that has no effect my child
on the fact that you are mine
you have been for a long long while
you will be for all time
i feel our kinship at my core
you are my flesh and blood
our hearts are one forevermore
come sun, or rain, or flood
i will never let you go
you are safe, don’t flee
no past, no future though
are in this place with me
your name may be forgotten
the one that i bestowed
still your eternal flame begotten
burns brightly in my soul
despair is not your destiny
our beings are intertwined
look beyond the things you see
my love there you will find
©2017 Susan Macaulay. I invite you to share my poetry widely, but please do not reblog or copy and paste my poems into other social media without my permission. Thank you.
https://myalzheimersstory.com/2015/01/21/it-doesnt-matter-that-mom-doesnt-know-me-anymore/
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My Alzheimer's Story 
That is beautiful, Susan, and so very true. I can remember with my mother that first time she had no idea who I was…and that loss I felt looking at her. My father was long passed and, all of a sudden, it was like I was no one’s child. Blessings to you, my friend- xo Diana
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Thanks Diana, I’m very lucky in that I never felt that loss. Mom knew me off and on, but when she didn’t, I didn’t feel the despair that some do. I’m grateful for that. Bless you too and all the good prayer mustering you do via your blog: https://thenanadiana.blogspot.ca/ . We need more of your kind of positive energy around the planet ❤
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Thank you so much for this and for your blog. Tonight I Googled “when your mother doesn’t remember you” and found your site. It is bringing me solace even as my eyes are filled with tears.
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