May 2015: Mom loved anything to do with candy and/or having fun. She had boundless energy, and was forever on the go. When I was two, she dressed us both up as “geisha girls” for halloween trick or treating. The next year we were hula dancers. She celebrated all the holidays. Loved St Patrick’s Day in particular. Her spirit was indomitable, even when Alzheimer disease was doing its best to destroy her brain, and she was being inappropriately sedated to contain her irrepressible spirit. She simply did not give up.
This poem is about not giving up together.
you took me by the hand
©2015 punkie
you took me by the hand
when I was a little girl
you took me by the hand
on hallow’s eves we tricked and treated
as geisha girls or hula dancers
in kimonos and grass skirts
either way you put flowers in our hair
and together we were beautiful
now I visit you every day
wondering if this one will be the last
or will it be the next or the one after that
when death seems close I pray
when it’s not, you take me by the hand
your fingers curl around mine:
soft, innocent, trusting,
free of yesterdays and tomorrows
we have walked off and on countless tracks
alone, side by side, hand in hand
this is the most beaten of them all
from one papered brick wall to another then back
hard wood creaking and complaining underfoot
suddenly the whole world
lies inside an old hotel
and a single step has become a miracle
just as you did when i was a little girl
i take you by the hand
you say: i wish i could go faster
i answer: you can, you are and let’s
as your left shoe inches past the right then vice versa
forgotten hopes and dreams hide and seek between our feet
in this minute, this moment, this time
when I was a little girl
we danced and skipped into the lives before us
now we shuffle and sing and leave them behind
i wear a big yellow tulip and you wear a big red rose
but they’re in our hearts, not our hair
we know the end is near, and yet, so far, beyond our grasp
and together we are still beautiful
when you put your hand in mine
© 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/2016/04/27/we-too-are-one/
https://myalzheimersstory.com/2018/03/27/i-wish-you-could-see-her/
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My Alzheimer's Story 