Day 28 - getting older
I have been soooo sick that I couldn’t even look at a screen never mind think about posting anything, and I’ve been missing being here. I’m happy to be back and looking forward to catching up with everything I’ve been missing out on!
My generation has their parents around for much longer than previous ones, I think. My Gran died before my mum turned 50, and my grandfather died early, 25 years previously, so he never met his grandchildren. I found my parents really hard to deal with in their later years. The burden of organizing their care and lives fell largely to my brother, and my sister was their emotional support. I was there for clearing up and moving and painting and packing, but I didn't do much of the nitty gritty. No excuses. Now that they're gone I see that maybe things could have been different, and there I draw the line, because the past is done and cannot be changed. Their last years gave rise to many poems.
Frail care
After years of obedience
my mother awoke on Easter Friday
and rebelled.
She called my sister and said
"How dare you incarcerate me
against my will, without consulting me?"
My father hovered in the background
his complaints a Greek chorus,
wailing.
My brother cried.
My sister said "We will look at our actions."
I was a thousand miles away
and heard it all secondhand.
This is so moving, Karin. Your poem carries the ache of distance, geographical, emotional, and temporal, with such tenderness. These years of witnessing our parents' vulnerability often come with guilt, regrets, and roles we never rehearsed. Your honesty touches me: the line “the past is done and cannot be changed” holds such quiet acceptance. And still, there is poetry, your way of remembering, processing, honouring. Thank you for sharing this. It speaks to something many of us carry, quietly.