by Granny Janny
Member since:
February 16, 2006

Dementia, A Poem For Friday Writing Essential

April 13, 2012 12:57 AM UTC (Updated: April 13, 2012 01:09 AM UTC)
views: 0 | 18 people recommend this | comments: 40

My mother's wilting dementia

Seared her delicate skull

Left a burned out chalice

That formerly

Brimmed with bubbly brilliance

Luminous love

Enough to sustain

Her six adoring children


This charred vessel

Held only old memories

And cold ashes with the stench

Of fumes from a lifetime of

Inhaling and exhaling smoke

This is the bitter cloud and shroud

She wore to her impending end

While we watched with helpless horror

http://media-files.gather.com/images/d594/d325/d747/d224/d96/f3/full.jpg

Prompt:  Please take this opportunity to write about whatever my experiences bring to mind. What was it like when you went through similar things with your grandparents? Or have you yet to experience it? When did you first encounter Alzheimer's or dementia? You could even talk about memories of your grandparents. Whatever you'd like.

Comments: 40

Alice G. Apr 13, 2012, 1:14am UTC
Jan, what a heart-wrenching story in verse. There are no trite words or smooth phrases to ease this kind of ache at watching only a parody of a once-vibrant productive loved one slowly cease to be. Thank you for sharing because there are no doubt many even now going through the same situation.
Granny Janny Apr 13, 2012, 1:28am UTC
I appreciate your comment, Alice. This poem is written harshly or brutally as in an emotional reflection of a disaster...or a catastrophe of living loss.
Alice G. Apr 13, 2012, 1:56am UTC
It is certainly all of that.
Karen E. Apr 13, 2012, 1:27am UTC
How very sad. The wilting of a human flower...
Granny Janny Apr 13, 2012, 11:32pm UTC
She was an entire bouquet!
Karen E. Apr 14, 2012, 12:54am UTC
Oh dear... What a beautiful thing to say about her!
Betty S. Apr 22, 2012, 12:16pm UTC
It seems like dementia picks the from life's bouquet... I've worked in many nursing homes and watched this happen away to many times. People I've known for years would be admitted.. The ones who I had known were no the person I once knew.
Kathryn Flynn Apr 13, 2012, 1:44am UTC
The loss of a brain is utterly catastrophic to be a part of...
Granny Janny Apr 13, 2012, 11:31pm UTC
You bet.
Janet "Jax" B. Apr 13, 2012, 2:17am UTC
Good poem....but that is awful. We watched my aunt go from bright and bubbly to a world all her own. Her dementia went on for over 12 yrs....and just kept getting worse. Thank goodness she was able to live at home through the whole ordeal.
Granny Janny Apr 13, 2012, 11:31pm UTC
Janet. I'm glad to hear that she was cared for in that way.
Janet "Jax" B. Apr 14, 2012, 1:17am UTC
She was lucky, as my uncle allowed drillers to put natural gas wells on the outlying areas of the farm. The income from the wells paid for a nurse to come in.
J. Reid Apr 13, 2012, 7:02am UTC
Smiles...

Thank you for submitting to: Not Gathering Dust!
JOHN BECK Apr 13, 2012, 7:46am UTC
A powerful message and poem.
JustMe ~I'm happy to be~ Apr 13, 2012, 8:27am UTC
Sigh.........
Stirling D. Apr 13, 2012, 9:55am UTC
How very moving and sad. One of your most effective poems, I think, as it conveys both subjective and objective truth. Hugs.
Granny Janny Apr 13, 2012, 11:30pm UTC
Hugs accepted and appreciated, my dear friend.
A. F. Stewart Apr 13, 2012, 11:33am UTC
Full of sad, poignant emotion.
CL Mareydt Apr 13, 2012, 11:38am UTC
So much of life is lost on the way thru ... this is sad too ---

The only consolation is that she is possible not aware it is happening at all ... my Mother is in the same way & I see she doesn't recognize what she use to recognize ... It is a whole different world, but she is peaceful in it as far as I can comprehend. I miss her.

You wrote a beautiful poem even if it has an emotional edge to it ... the pic is fantastic also ...
Granny Janny Apr 13, 2012, 11:30pm UTC
I'm happy to hear that she is at peace. My mom was not.
CL Mareydt Apr 14, 2012, 9:28am UTC
That is sad to hear ... I'm sorry Granny Janny ... it is an awful disease to say the least ...
Sandy Moore Apr 13, 2012, 12:07pm UTC
This is very sad.
Len Maxwell Apr 13, 2012, 1:21pm UTC
A very powerfully written poem about something many people endure.

Thanks for posting to the Wall of Sorrow on The Triple Name Club where it's now featured.
Granny Janny Apr 13, 2012, 11:29pm UTC
Thank you, Len. This was from the raw emotive heart.
Doug Westberg Apr 13, 2012, 1:55pm UTC
A heartbreaking image, exquisitely rendered. Thanks for sharing with Depression and Creativity!
Now featured
Granny Janny Apr 13, 2012, 11:29pm UTC
Thanks, Doug.
Sonia M. Apr 13, 2012, 7:15pm UTC
I can only repeat what Doug has said above....A heartbraking image, exquisitely rendered...What a horrifying experience that has to be for the loved ones.

My mom was diagnosed with incipient Alzheimer in early 2000...she was preparing for it bravely and would ask people's forgiveness if she forgot something and would explained why...yet, years passed and the disease never did completely manifest itself. We, her children and family, agreed she had some form of age developing dementia but it certainly was not Alzheimer...or at least not like any other Alzheimer patient we had known. She lived until December of 08 and she still and very lucid periods where she could perfectly recall not only long ago memories, but current situations...and she never forgot who we were or our names...except to call my brothers' by each other's names and my sister and I by each others' names....but she did that when we were growing up too!
Granny Janny Apr 13, 2012, 11:28pm UTC
My mother also was able to live and know us until she died. But the short term memory loss is devastating as well as the personality change we experienced. Long term memories thrived and I could kick myself for not concentrating on those in the last days we had with her.
Sonia M. Apr 13, 2012, 11:55pm UTC
My sister and I did a video of our mom responding to questions that we had previously written down and would ask her...it was a riot! Those last few years she just said what she thought and some of her feelings about earlier family life - with her cousins or her aunts, uncles etc, she was quite frank,.... we never showed the video to one side of the family! They would have been insulted...we thought it was funny!
Searing! Searing in its power.
Granny Janny Apr 13, 2012, 11:26pm UTC
Thanks, it's the writing that's most real.
Powerfully so!
stephen berwaldt Apr 13, 2012, 10:16pm UTC
A beautifully written poem of unique sadness and grief...sad to see ones we love become just the shadow of what they used to be... You have an amazing gift...

Thank you submitting to Gathers Luminous Writers and Artists. Now featured.
Granny Janny Apr 13, 2012, 11:25pm UTC
Thanks, Steve. I just got my poem done and must rush to prepare late dinner for about to arrive son, and girlfriend. What a day. I published my second ghazal, the one that insisted to be written instead of the first. Funny how that goes. I'll have to read the other submission after everyone goes to bed...
stephen berwaldt Apr 14, 2012, 9:06am UTC
You're a busy little beaver. It is neat how our poetry often know what should be written and it often turns out to totally different than when we started...like relationships, kinda...sorta..not really...but yeah...okay...like relationships... :)
Kevin E. Apr 13, 2012, 10:50pm UTC
This is a very touching and well written poem. My deepest sympathy to you and your mother.
Granny Janny Apr 13, 2012, 11:26pm UTC
We will honor five years since she passed next month. Thanks, Kevin, for your sympathy....and hugs to you.
Irina Dimitric Apr 13, 2012, 11:42pm UTC
A poignant poem, beautifully written.
Chris Brockman Apr 14, 2012, 8:50am UTC
This so captures the disappointment, frustration, and tragedy of dementia. I love the seeming allusion to a flower, "wilting dementia"; sounds like a flower. I anticipated that as your central metaphor (thanks. I may use that myself--my own father has dementia), but the one you chose was, perhaps, even better. The picture, with its complex etchings, tops it off perfectly.
Granny Janny Apr 17, 2012, 12:54am UTC
Chris, thanks for your insightful comment. I'm sorry to hear about your father..

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