We live near a short-term care facility and often see people in wheelchairs as family spends time with them and helps them to enjoy the outdoors, such as today. What I saw this evening, has caused me to step back a bit, and remember my grandmother. Seeing an individual with dementia, and those moments when the slight grip on reality has disappeared, is heart-wrenching, and humbling. I guess there is not much more to say this evening, except for this poem I wrote.
Already the threads are slim
and tenuous at best
and the grip we do have to this reality
is fragile and precious.
Those moments when when the
veil is most thick isolates
the vision, the mind, the being
from the moment, regardless of its
reality, what only matters is perception,
and when the perception is shut-off
when the light in the long, winding
tunnel disappears, survival takes over –
the innate, animalistic, and raw fight
to survive instincts wrestle control
from the flailing being.
