Waiting to Go Back Home

      My mother spent the last three years of her life in a dementia facility.  She was the only patient there who did not have Alzheimer's, but her debility and schizophrenia made her fit in well. I work with both elderly and mentally impaired in home health, but it takes a much greater level of commitment to work with dementia patients on a daily basis. That is a special calling. It helps to remember  that the people who live in these facilities are not the elderly people you see. They are children, and soldiers, and parents. People with lives they are trying to get back to, but can't. This is for them and for those who will become them.

  

 Waiting to Go Back Home

Carol is waiting right by the door, 

she has her winter coat on.

She wants to be ready when mommy appears.

She’s waiting to go back home.

Albert is pacing across the floor. 

What’s taking Martha so long?

Why is she spending so long at the store?

She ought to be taking him home.

Marion’s children are late coming back, 

school should be over by now.

The strangers around her don’t know where they are.

Why haven’t the children come home?

Who are these people, and why are they here? 

They know that something is wrong.

Shouldn’t their family have shown up by now,

so they can take them back home?

Why shouldn’t they fidget, and struggle and cry, 

and try to sneak out of the door?

Their mothers, and lovers, and children are gone

and waiting for them at home.