It's My Birthday and I'Ll Cry If I Want To - Emotive Poem
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I visited mum today
as I do almost every day
She greeted me with open arms
And then says
‘I didn’t think you’d come ...
I thought you had fallen out with me’
Yet
Yesterday everything was fine
and it was fine the day before
and the day before that
‘oh it must have been one of my hallucinations’ she says
Then she happily takes my arm
as we walk slowly to her room
We then take turns playing memory games
A B C of places, boys names, girls names, countries, towns and cities,
fruit and vegetables, birds and animals, occupations
In fact any subject I can think of to keep her brain active
Then suddenly ...
she jumps from D to J
and has gone back to the previous category
I take her hand
and gently remind her what comes next
then we continue to play quite normally
The time comes for me to leave
I kiss her goodbye
I say 'see you tomorrow' ...
and with that I leave
As I walk home
I am not conscious that I am crying
But ...
I am aware of my tears
which drip down onto my coat -
Thank goodness it’s waterproof!
Over the last five visits
When I’ve left mum’s room
My tears have fallen
I guess I am grieving...
not because she has died
but because bit by bit, ever so gradually
her memory is slipping away
therefore I am losing my mum as she once was
Today is my birthday
I could not stem the flow of tears
25th January 2020
Copyright © Jan Allison | Year Posted 2020
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