More and more
on bad days
he is lost
in a world
filled with confusion
and time travel
to his past.
He hallucinates
of places and people
no other can see.
It fills him
with panic
and anger
and frustration.
He is lost.
On good days
he experiences
an approximation
of reality
once more,
but it fills him
with terror
as he sees
the horror
of his future.
He looks at
loved ones
with pleading eyes
that convey
the unspoken wish
to be saved
from the yawning abyss
into which
he knows
he is sinking.
His loved ones
reassure him
with forced,
comforting smiles
all will be well,
but they know
they lie
as they turn away
hot tears welling
in their eyes,
for all know
Alzheimer’s
always wins.
Having seen my grandmother deteriorate from a vibrant, highly intelligent and well read woman at 85, gradually become a body without a mind until her death that 90, I fully understand the angst of those close to the disease.
Let us hope that the disease becomes understood and thwarted very soon so that poems like this will not have to be written.
Someone once described Alzheimer's as like going room to room and turning the lights out one by one. My mother had Alzheimer's, and I can say that's an accurate description. I watched my dad die from lung cancer and my mom die from alzheimer's. If given a choice, I'd take cancer over losing one's mind. A powerful write.
Someday they will come up with a solution to that horrible disease. I turn seventy-six next month, and although I am in pretty good shape physically I do suffer from pretty bad short term memory lost. I don't plan to wind up like the person you speak of in this poem. I only hope I will have the sense to do something about it before I, too and lost.
In the Whirlwind is a poetic storm that frees history from the cages of corruption and puts it in the hands of everyday people. Words are weaved into a new fashion statement that has nothing to do with runways but everything to do with projects!
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Let us hope that the disease becomes understood and thwarted very soon so that poems like this will not have to be written.
Ron
Michael D.