Ah, Yes, To Just Go Gently

Even though I have shared my beliefs about how the dementia journey should end, I do not feel total despair. I am a realist. Problems are there to be studied, to build character, to be resolved. It is not from depression that I speak, although depression creeps in on late Friday nights and brings tears, for myself, but also for my Mother. Her journey and mine have always been intertwined; our rooms are connected. Within her last room, she now has no choice, but I want a different door to enter, and to exit. One of my favorite writers has stated that the test of our civilization will be in how we take care of our loved ones in this catastrophic epidemic. I hope I am learning. I am looking for a another favorite writer to say that salvation does not come from the drive for immortality. This I have learned in the past ten years.

The quest for immortality has produced unspeakable health gifts while giving us insufferable disabilities. We have altered the length of our time on this earth, but those bonus years at the twilight of our lives have not made us happier or more productive. I would ask: Please allow those of us who choose, to leave this “manufactured time” with dignity and grace.


CHOICES

Oh, Mr. Dylan Thomas you express
An often quoted point of view, defiant, resolute.
So strong, your life-force words, I must confess
Could stir the gentle soul to self-refute.

But death is not the enemy of life;
As winter snow is not the foe of spring and summer grass.
The marriage of grim reaper and midwife
Defines us all, continuums enmasse.

For some of us the light too swiftly dims,
Dark eyes no longer celebrate the singing of the sun.
No rage remains to quell our aging hymns,
Raw chants for home, the memories undone.

Is it not better then, to still the noise,
To close the painful vacancies when eyes no longer weep?
Should I become my mother, I will pray that God deploys
Some hands with love to give me final sleep.