a prayer for those who care worldwide

This poem is for Betty, and for the millions of other compassionate care partners and care workers worldwide. Thank you for all you do.

reaching out

a poem by punkie

i know you
caregiver sisters
and brothers and
daughters and sons and
husbands and wives who
spill your guts and guilt to
strange others when neighbours
and next of kin don’t get it really
or even at all and we waste
gifted time wondering
why they are blind.
i am exhausted
to the bone for you
and me and the rest of us
who believe we choose
this but no, we must care
because if we don’t who will?
we find ourselves alone
and together in this place
we would never have been
but for some cosmic mistake and
i reach for you and you for me
like the last straws we are for
the loved ones we fear
losing and whom
we want to keep
living and yet
all of us die
one day.
i want to comfort you
as i need to be comforted
but all we can offer today
are encouraging words,
tired hugs and hearts
linked by wishing
it would be over
sooner rather
than later
but not yet.
because when
the ones we love
finally take flight
we are left behind
on the edge of an abyss
purposeless and powerless
to bring them back or
retrieve the stolen
moments that whirl
like eddies in the deep
wake of their departure.
we try to quiet our faulty memories
where we failed to do something or enough
even though we did our best and
then we cry thunderstorms
at this final insult to
what might have
been better if
only we were.
but listen to this lesson
distant sisters, brothers, sons
daughters, wives and husbands:
live each precious moment as if it
were everyone’s last for all things pass
before we do too in the end and each
of us must find ways to lose regret
and rediscover joy to exhale with
final breaths and thus honour
lives we seek to dignify and
people we suffer to love
when we hold hands
now and forever
amen.

© Susan Macaulay 2015. I invite you to share the links widely, but please do not reprint or reblog or copy and paste my poems into other social media without my permission. Thank you.

https://myalzheimersstory.com/2017/04/05/dont-mourn-me-long/

https://myalzheimersstory.com/2019/05/07/7-ways-to-transform-dementia-care-grief-and-suffering-into-joy-and-healing/

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