Posted 11/28/22
If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you. -Psalm 139:18
A poem I whipped up this long weekend partially while I sat with mom on Thanksgiving:
Dementia’s Hourglass of Pain
The mundane grains drain…
Globe-to-globe, up-to-down,
A constrained seine slows their rain
Lobe-to-lobe, the brain skips town.
With each grain that’s drained
A memory’s path strains.
More is gone and less sustained.
Life’s motion slowly wanes.
Starts/stops/starts again.
Glimmered hope, grip regained
Brain-drains constraining campaign
Leaves each one broken-brained.
This Slow Hurricane
Spin-wraps me in cellophane.
Arcane…it’s hard to explain
This hourglass of pain
Yet joy we maintain,
We are not slain in vain.
For, to us, to die is gain.
Heaven’s hug ends the pain.
But
4
Now
Mundane grains remain.
Globe-to-globe, up-to-down,
A constrained seine slows their rain
Lobe-to-lobe, the brain skips town.
-Mark Applegate 11/22
Update: Had a few good visits with mom over the long break. 🙂 She is back on a different hospice and is “doing better” in many ways. She is brighter-eyed and more awake for one. The nursing home staff is great…never let me imply otherwise…but they are limited in time and staff/patient ratio. Hospice slows the hour glass drain…
#EndALZ
Beautiful Son!