It is World Alzheimer’s Month.
Donate to Alzheimer’s Research.
http://www.alzfdn.org/
Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia are frightening and devastating diagnoses for victims and their families. How frightening it must be to know that the mind is failing. I think the worst thing would be that, as the victim recognizes that he or she is having difficulty recalling people, events or details, it would even more frightening to think that he or she would be forgotten by others. Don’t forget them. This poem is for them. Donate to Alzheimer’s Foundation Research: http://www.alzfdn.org/
That You Remember Me
I’ve learned so much throughout my life
but there’s much I don’t recall.
I know it’s in there somewhere
but it’s hard to find it all.
It’s not that I’ve forgotten you,
or the things I said I’d do;
I remember everything
but it’s hidden somewhere I can’t see
just beyond my view.
You see, there is a shadow where
there didn’t used to be,
and sometimes when I look right there
it just confuses me.
I remember lovely flowers,
and songs I used to sing.
I remember springtime showers,
and rainbows they would bring.
I remember movies
and who would be the star,
but sometimes it’s so hard for me
to know just who you are.
I love to watch a baseball game
or listen to the birds.
I love to tell you secrets.
I love to hear your words.
I love for you to sit with me;
perhaps you’ll hold my hand
and tell me that you love me:
that I’ll understand.
My mind has ways of taking me
where I don’t want to go.
I know I know your name, you see;
just right now it’s hard for me
to think of things I really know,
and to know what really is
and what may not be so.
Though I might forget you,
it’s important that you see
just how much it means to me
that you remember me.
Daniel Mark Extrom
© Daniel Mark Extrom / Daniel Mark Picture Poems, Inc. 2009-2012. All rights reserved.
Donate to Alzheimer’s/dementia research.
Hiya, I am in 2nd year of university doing mental health nursing and am discussing your poem in an essay about Alzheimer’s and how your poem depicts this disease. If you have any comments or notes on reflection about your poem and its relation to Alzheimers I would greatly appreciate it.
Hi Rachel,
Thank you for your inquiry!
My mother-in-law, Marie, suffered from Alzheimer’s for a number of years before she passed, and now my own mother has suffered with it for over 10 years, but she is still alive. It occurred to me, when I watched my mother-in-law, that she probably recognized that her memory was failing. She may not have understood that she had Alzheimer’s, but she almost certainly knew for some period of time that she was having difficulty with word-finding and short-term memory issues. She had to search her mind to recall more recent events even though long-term memories remained, but even those, over time, started to fade away.
People would talk about her, in her presence, without realizing that she may well have understood that they were talking about her, but they were acting as if she was not present. My daughters, then in their teens, were very sensitive to this, and they would tell the adults that their grandmother likely understood that she was being talked about but was incapable of responding. My daughters recognized that no one would want to be talked about and analyzed in their presence without being able to reply or defend or explain themselves if he or she felt it appropriate. This would cause the subject to suspect that he or she was being analyzed as if they were not even present in the room during the conversation.
And so it occurred to me that, as a person’s memories start to fade, a major fear would
be that he or she would in fact be forgotten, just as his or her presence during these conversations was apparently unnoticed by those who were discussing her, even though they had, it should be said, good intentions. So I was trying to “get into the mind” of an Alzheimer’s victim who knows that memories are fading, and I realized that as that person’s memories fade, he or she must fear that others, whom they know and love, will forget them.
Thank you for your question!
Dan