Dementia

Dementia

It first will take your memory, slowly to begin,
Until it can control you and then it starts to win.
Then there will be anger while confusion fills your head,
You won’t know if it’s day or night, or understand what’s said.
Eventually you won’t know who the people are you see,
Your loved ones all around you will want to shout “it’s me”,
Anxiety will follow as confusion takes a hold,
You may cry and not know why, or come across as cold.
Your family will watch you and try to guide you right,
But because you just don’t know them you argue and you fight.
Dementia will keep stealing a bit of you each day
Until it gets a hold of you and steals you right away.
You will not know it’s happening, your dignity will go,
You will need help to live your life, but at least you will not know.
It’s hardest for your family to watch you fade away,
To see the person who they love be taken day by day.
You may look on the outside just like you did before,
But something will be missing, you’re not there anymore.
Your words will come out jumbled, we won’t know what you mean,
Your eyes will just seem empty, forgetting what you’ve seen.
All we can do is watch you and sit and hold your hand
While dementia takes you from us and you do not understand,
And then when it has stolen you, your memories and your mind,
It has no thought for all it took, the pain it left behind.
Dementia may have borrowed you, but you were not for keeps,
Eventually it let you go, then all of us could weep.
The grief that we were feeling we just couldn’t let out
Because it left the shell of you suppressing how we felt.
Dementia may have taken you, but now it’s set you free,
Your soul is in another place, the rest is history
  

Tracie Heard
01/06/18

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