She
doesn't know my name, even though she used to call me Casey.
She doesn't recognize my face, even though she used to touch it with her
smooth hands.
She can't remember the song we used to sing while playing around her house.
This stupid thing, this stupid disease has taken her, my grandma, the one
we love so much.
It's trapped her inside, way down deep in the core of her heart
where her spirit still lives the way she used to be.
She wants to be let out, but no one knows how to open those steel iron
doors bolted shut.
When me and my family walk through those doors of where she stays we all
get nervous;
What will she do? What will she say? Or will she even have some idea of
who we are?
We can't understand why it's taken her, she doesn't deserve this, she's
done nothing wrong.
When you concentrate and really look into her eyes you can see her: who
she really is, how she used to be.
I'm going throught this now, but will I have to go through this again?
Will it happen to my Mom?
It hurts me to see my Mom watch my grandma slip away.
Will my Mom get this horrible thing where she slowly slips away,
forgetting all the things she has done, and what she's lived for?
Will I have to try my hardest to take care and love her as I always have,
and wonder why no one knows how to stop this thing, like I watch my Mom
do with my grandma?
It doesn't need to happen; to her my grandma, my Mom, maybe me, or anyone
else.
No one deserves to watch or go through this pain and suffering, like me
and my family are going through.
My grandma doesn't really talk any more, and she doesn't call our names.
I wonder if she remembers any of us?
My Mom says, "The Heart Remembers."
Casey was 15 when she wrote this poem, she is now 20.
Her grandmother passed away in September after living 17 years with Alzheimer's.
© 1996
Cannot be copied without the expressed permission of the writer
This poem is displayed with written permission from the Coonrod Family