Wake up Mom

 

 

Wake up Mom

Wake up mom, you sleep too much.

I miss your warmth. I miss your touch.

Lately you are not around,

Memories in the lost and found.

 

I visit, you don’t recognize,

A vacuum now has filled your eyes.

It’s making conversation hard,

You’ve been dealt this ugly card.

 

I feed you, bathe you, show I care,

As you give back a distant stare.

Mom how could you be so cold?

Mom how could you get so old?

 

When I leave I just feel sad,

When I leave I get so mad.

A miracle will never come,

To save the lady I call mom.

 

The counselors tell me “just accept,

The way things are”, I do except.

The nursing staff, don’t understand,

This patient use to hold my hand.

 

She held me when I got in trouble,

What I gave her she gave back double.

A smile that could light up a room,

A smile that now expresses doom.

 

Snap out of it, I’ve had enough,

Your kids have had it pretty rough.

We don’t know what to do or say,

I now ignore your Mother’s Day

 

But I’ll remember Christmas days,

Birthday parties, gentle ways,

Sewing patches, ironed shirts,

Kissing ouches, soothing hurts.

 

In simpler times, not long ago,

You took control, you stole the show.

Daddy’s wife who always shone,

Even though that shine has gone.

 

I’ll remember quiet times,

Bedtime stories, nursery rhymes.

Baking cookies just for me,

Teaching lessons none could see.

This lady, grandkids barely knew,

When I say Grandma, they say “Who?”

Pictures share a different time,

Evidence before the crime.

 

I curse this mystical disease,

That  brings the patient to their knees.

Thank God, your mostly unaware,

Of all the loss that’s hanging there.

 

I’ll remember what you were,

A different lady, a different her.

So hurry mother, get well soon,

It’s not evening, it’s barely noon.

 

The roles you played we won’t forget,

Changing everyone you met,

A mother, sister, favourite aunt,

We will remember…. because you can’t.

 

Where did I go?