Juliet Henderson
2014

She sits there by the Rayburn rubbing the wart on her left eyelid
Reading the newspaper the way she always has
Mind still sharp for crosswords and scrabble
She doesn’t give up looking for winning solutions easily
Why should she need care?

Her blood is ours.

She lies childlike asleep warmed by an electric blanket
Worn sheepskin slippers by the bedside with holes in the toes
Shirt, cardigan, and blouse worn five days in a row lain on a chair
Wooden floorboards store memories of falls she keeps secret
Does this mean she is no longer safe?

We can feel her confusion.

Her memory fails her again and again
Friend’s names, what she did five minutes ago,
Where she went on holiday,
Her life erased, her life, now present moment repeated again and again
Does this mean she must quit her home and independence?

We feel the betrayal in our children’s hearts.

So I’m going to the home for three days. Oh, three weeks?
How strange, and it’s just across the road from here?
Does everybody know? Can I take my radio?
Oh, I have my own room, I thought there were wards,
And I’m going because of my problems with my memory?

Trying to understand.

What crime has she committed to lose all most dear to her?
What system of justice requires her to relocate to a residential home?
To forego the freedoms she spent a lifetime treasuring
To burn up her carefully managed estate in a market of care
How did it come to this?

Our mother is disappearing into age.

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Forty-Three e-Newsletter • Number 501 • January 2021
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW

newsletter@oxfordquakers.org