Saturday, August 31, 2019
On Diminished Capacity
Well, I know for certain I gave him the keys
in his hand, because I don't have them any more,
So he has them.
Do you suppose he is getting copies made?
Do you suppose he has designs on me?
Because I have no thought of anything with him,
his wife can rest easy.
I keep calling and asking "do you have the keys?"
"No keys," he says, "I gave them back to you."
But I don't have them, so he has lost them.
The man is in another world, the poor bugger.
I left a big pile of papers on my desk.
(Don't worry, Sweet heart, whenever you have time,
don't exhaust yourself.)
Remember I switched from Shaw to Telus
because the TV wasn't working?
Well, Telus is an Idiot,
and I am switching back to Shaw,
but Telus says I signed a plan,
and i did not sign a plan.
So I am filing a complaint.
Thank you, God, for giving me a brain
to keep the papers from all the years.
Can you find the paper, don't exhaust yourself,
but the man is calling in half an hour,
I love you, God bless you,
the world is full of Idiots
making us tired.
And from the sale I got half the price for my chairs.
Two chairs they got for the price of one,
People, they don't want to pay.
They have hardly been sat in for 15 years,
and there they go, walking out the door,
God bless the people who sit in them,
and this poor widow,
left here to cry alone.
For Bjorn's prompt at Real Toads: the Unreliable narrator. This was an elderly lady with dementia who was still trying to function on her own, for whom I provided home support. Her situation became increasingly difficult.
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A painful read, Sherry, as it’s so familiar from both my mother and grandfather.
ReplyDeleteOh Sherry, it must be especially hard when one you are so familiar with becomes unreliable in their word. And they do, in big ways, get taken for a ride by some who takes advantage of their situation. Their classic telltale beacon is their losing things. Each of us, Mrs. Jim and I, have lost a set of keys. I think mine are in a place where neither can reach or see. We have no hint as to where hers are. I did look in the refrigerator, the classic place to find things. I hope this is not an omen.
ReplyDeleteThis was a sad reading poem. Sherry. Yet familiar in ways familiar to many of us.
..
I immediately picked up on the shift in reality that occurs when dementia takes over. This is a most poignant portrait, and you have conveyed her personality so well.
ReplyDeleteIn this I so much recognize my own mother... mixing up reality with fantasies (secret lovers...) and forgetting things that had happened to her... and she could get so angry too... at one time even hitting a lady helping her.
ReplyDeleteA poignant narrative about loss and hard times. This is a great read Sherry.
ReplyDeleteYowza!
ReplyDeleteI could feel the confusion, the loss and the lost and the switch back and forth. It could be simple absent-mindedness or something much more significant. Or she could be right... and everyone else is wrong... but god bless them anyway. There's a sweetness in that as well.
ReplyDeleteSo much pain here Sherry- poor dear. So well written!
ReplyDeleteSuch an evocative write, Sherry! I could feel the emotions described in each stanza.
ReplyDeleteOh, this reminds me of my mother. I remember the day she cornered me insisting the man in the house wasn't her husband. It broke me into a thousand pieces.
ReplyDeleteLike everyone else, I was reminded of
ReplyDeletefamily members who have already slid
gently into dementia. Once they forget
that they can't remember, they are
relatively happy with their half hour
memory. But hell for their loved ones
whom they don't recognize any more.
Thank you Sherry, beautifully written
poem.
crossing from fiction into reality - the most potent unreliable narration I've read in some time, Sherry ~
ReplyDelete