I used to work as a home visiting nurse. Occasionally I would do care work, all night with a dementia client. I often wondered what such a person was really thinking, not what my observational thoughts were.
With modern management surgery correcting other maladies, more and more of us can look forward to reaching this state of mind. Your assumption in your poetry is as good as any. Who knows what goes on in the mind of the demented.
My uncle who saw my grandmother deteriorate in a nursing hospital almost every day, said that "she is staying alive for some reason." When she died, my father and another brother, came to the funeral and shook hands. They hadn't talked to one another for over 10 years after a fight. "I guess that's the reason she stayed alive. So that they would make amends when she died."
I can relate well to this poem. My mother suffered dementia. We would go through a cycle of the same stream of questions every few minutes until I felt I was losing my mind. I pray that I don't suffer the same way in the end.
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My uncle who saw my grandmother deteriorate in a nursing hospital almost every day, said that "she is staying alive for some reason." When she died, my father and another brother, came to the funeral and shook hands. They hadn't talked to one another for over 10 years after a fight. "I guess that's the reason she stayed alive. So that they would make amends when she died."
Ron