Embedded in my mind are the few days before my grandma died. I stood there, looking at her in her rented hospital bed that sat off to the side of the bedroom she shared with my grandpap. I had never noticed her skin, now so wrinkly and it was hard to avert my eyes from the pale green diaper that peeked from under the crisp white sheets. I stumbled across this poem a few years ago but it meant nothing until I read it after she died. Perhaps it's maturity, because when I read it now, I think not only of my grandma but of me someday. The circle of life.
A Young Girl Still Dwells
What do you see, nurse, what do you see?
Are you thinking when you look at me -
A crabbed old woman, not very wise,
Uncertain of habit with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles her food and makes no reply
When you say in a loud voice, "I do wish you'd try!"
Who seems not to notice the things that you do,
And forever is losing a stocking or shoe?
Who resisting or not, lets you do as you will
With bathing and feeding, the long days to fill?
Is that what your'e thinking is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse, you're looking at me.
I'll tell you who I am as I sit here so still.
As I move at your bidding, eat at your will...
I'm a small chld of ten with a father and a mother,
Brothers and sisters who love one another;
A young girl of sixteen with wings on her feet,
Dreaming that soon a love she'll meet;
A bride at twenty my heart takes a leap,
Remembering vows that I promised to keep;
At twenty-five now I have young of my own
Who need me to build a secure, happy home;
A woman of thirty, my young now grow fast,
Bound together with ties that should last;
At forty, my young sons have grown up and gone,
But my man's beside me to see that I don't mourn;
At fifty once more babies play round my knee,
Again we know children my loved ones and me.
Dark days are upon me; my husband is dead,
I look at the future, I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing young of their own,
And I think of the years and the love that I've known.
I'm an old woman now and nature is cruel;
Tis her jest to make old age look like a fool.
The body it crumbles, grace and vigor depart;
There is a stone where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass a young girl still dwells,
And now, again, my embittered heart swells.
I remember the joys, I remember the pain
And I'm loving and living life over again,
I think of the years, all too few, gone too fast
Adn accept the stark fact that nothing can last.
So open your eyes nurse, open and see
Not a crabbed old woman,
Look closer -- see me!