1000 Knots

As I have progressed in my journey with Alzheimer’s since mom passed, I have looked for and found ways to continue to bring hope and healing into the Alzheimer’s community. This poem is one of my first “post mom” poems written for a group of caregivers I volunteered to meet with  in a program at one of the local senior centers.

This poem was the expression my own experience of caregiving that I shared with them.  It is my hope it will speak to the heart of caregivers in their journeys everywhere. It came from mine.

Oh toil of a thousand nots

by these I’m bound

lost

fettered

and unfound

in my thoughts and griefs.

Who or what will set me free

floating clear from agony?

Oh dream I of this far beauty –

place of peace and rest

Whilst now I am

here – Knotted in my fear,

by life distressed.

Yet even so, in my nots, I wrest

my life from these

One by One I please

the gods of time and test

Exploring where the knotted road I lead

will take me next

Each not anonymously sent

my time unalterably spent

Untying treasures in each one.

I faintly discern

Small victories found

and lessons slowly

learned.

The path of the care-giver partner is peppered with the nots of paradise lost and salted with the lessons of time, patience and love in facing and meeting the daily challenges of Alzheimer’s disease.     Ж DL