Margaret Morgan-Owen

In 2005 my husband, Alasdair, had what was described as ‘memory problems’ by our local doctor. Two years later it was confirmed as Alzheimer’s disease – the impact whilst devastating was the start of a journey. The poems in this book mark our progress through that journey and beyond. Everything is dealt with including everyday life which became far more than ordinary and instead extra ordinary making what we take for granted doing so very easily an odyssey of often insurmountable obstacles. With complete honesty the full gamut of emotions we experienced are covered joy, love, anger, frustration and in the end loneliness and despair. I try to bring out the humour in the situation which was not always easy but above all the thing that united us throughout – our love. This book tackles through poetry what it is like for a family to go through all the stages of looking after a loved one with dementia including dealing with care agencies, care homes, officialdom, how others saw us and the taboo subjects of incontinence, death, and grief.

I hope that what I have written will help and encourage others going through the same experience. Current figures suggest that dementia will dramatically increase affecting more and more of the population and it does so personal experiences such as mine have a role to play in offering understanding, and shared sympathy and even the hope that acceptance can bring.

There are many books written about dementia but none quite like this!

EXTRACT:

Changing

You are changing before my eyes,
Some would call it evolving,
Others devolving,
Me,
Simply revolving,
So I never know who you are
Going to be.

The anger, aggression,
Frustration,
Hesitation,
Frightens us both
Into oblivion.

We both crawl out
By our fingertips,
Admittedly me shielding,
You not heeding
Any warnings.

Just going for it
Helter-skelter – like you always did.

And me just dying behind you
As you blunder deeper
Into the abyss,
What can I do,
How do I call you back?

Where is the despair?
When you’re not there?

An attempt to describe the changes in personality that overtook Alasdair from the very start.

Upstairs

I suggest we go upstairs
“Where’s upstairs”
He asks,
Perplexed.

“Upstairs” I say.

“But where” he asks again.

“Upstairs, here”

“Where’s here?
Where are we? Have we gone away?”

I cannot answer,
Because upstairs is just upstairs,
Suddenly, inspired I say
“To bed.”

“Oh” he processes this.
“Are we going upstairs” he asks again.

“Yes to bed” I say.

“Well why” he asks
“Didn’t you say so first of all?”

And what can I reply?
Except to nod and agree with him,
Then he stumps me
Completely
“Where” he asks “is downstairs?”

“It’s here” I say
“Where we are.”

And that’s too much information
For he immediately asks
“Where’s here?”

So I give him our address
And he says,
“Are we home?”

“Yes” I say.

“Oh,” he says
“Then let’s go to bed!”

We had some very surreal conversations just like this one!

Gift

To have loved
And been loved as you
Loved me
Is a gift
I will carry to eternity.

I’m so very glad
We met,
We laughed, we quarrelled, we loved,
And we were we.

I would not have it different
Any of it,
For me you will always be the gift
That was my life.

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