When Mrs. W taught me my verb tenses in 5th grade
Some were easy but some, well, made no sense
I mean, Lay I understand, but when is it lain and not laid??
My mind was perpetually riding the fence.
If he slits – he slit – he has slit
But he spits – he spat – he has spat
Yet it fits – it fitted – it has fitted…feels off a bit
But if he quits – he quit – he has quit……no -ed on that.
Oh, and to really break our brains, thunk this one through
He reads [reeds] – he read [red] – he has read [red]
The stinking word looks the same but sounds all new!
Oh, my aching, 12 year old head!!!
But we figure it out. We spend time with the special ones. We memorize.
We tell our friends from overseas that is the only real way…
Then when we see someone less smarterer than we, we criticize
As language hypocrites we then goed on our way.
But this whole dementia problem retrained my brain on tense trauma
My mom is alive and well and yet “she” was “gone” long, long ago
Maybe quotes over the words lessons the tense drama
Of the tense being wrong, yet why do the tears still flow?
The “she” is long gone and the new she has no quotes,
But she looks like “she”, ok…I know, her
But the ‘shes’ are the same person, as the single ” ‘ ” denotes
Stupid language…Grrrrrrrrrrrr
Far more stupid than the language is this disease
It has taken/took away the old mom and gave me this wonderful shell
I love the new mom and do my best to bring her ease,
While praying often this mess would be cast to hell.
I don’t have many grammar cheats for you
Nor any solid ways to keep what this brain mess stolt. (or stole??)?.
Just learn the special ones, memorize, and…uhhh…just do.
then love the new one lots until the disease takes its toll.
So, this stuff has passed tense….
No verbs, nor adjectives, nor similes can fully express.
Millions have it and thousands search, it makes no sense…
Why the cure is so dang elusive? 100 years, sadly, little success.
-Mark
#EndALZ
Update: Not much. We are having to work much harder keeping her cared for the best possible since hospice took away the many great things they brought the last few years…and we are still fighting to regain hospice services. She is status 7-f on a scale from A1-7f, health wise. You get the point, but they apparently forgot. We’ll keep fighting regardless how tense life gets…
I am going for my 14th(?) different clinical study late this month and my 15th in early December. There is good news on the horizon…
Heartfelt ♥️
Thank you 🙂