In 2024, I lost my grandmother to dementia. There are days when I feel I’m doing well and can see what she saw, and days when I can’t talk to anyone about it. But there are no days when I regret anything. She was one of the very special people in my life, and I was able to ring her every day and see her almost every day until she died. I don’t want to forget, and I don’t want to view those final years as pointless and cruel (even though there is nothing pleasant about dementia and some aspects of it are as cruel as can be). I want to remember that, in between, we had moments that made the rest worthwhile, and that they brought us even closer together. During that time, I wrote a number of poems, sometimes short scenes and other times more autobiographical pieces. This text is one of them.
Sometimes I pause
And I think about
How it felt
To be held
By those fingers
Now wrinkled and crooked
How you cooked
In that wooden kitchen
With the afternoon light pouring in
The faint sounds of coal eaten by fire
The radio talking on the windowsill
I remember how
You decorated the apple pie
How we sat
On the unstable table
How we laughed about the crosswords
How you told me you’d be better off
Knitting my socks
And so
I sat there filling in rivers and countries and people
And you sat there wool getting smaller and bent
I look down today and see myself
In the socks you made that day
When your smile was still fully there
When we could still talk for hours and you could reply
And I will remember
I will always remember, even when you can’t anymore
How it felt
To be fully present
To be fully careless
How it felt
To be fully loved
By you.