Your demands upon my time
are not exacted through command
or through complaint, but simply
by your presence — you’re awake
and need protecting from a fall,
you’re asleep, and need changing
These simple things I do —
your meals, your cleaning,
and my bad piano playing
to make you feel at home,
though I didn’t feel that way at first,
I find they are no problem
They have, in fact, a certain lift,
when I see you contented,
when I feel you at peace.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 23, 2017
Oh love I love this. Just left my parents house yesterday where my father is so well cared for by my mother and ever increasingly by my larger stronger brother. It is reaching a point where the physical demands of caring for this loved and loving person in a body that forgets how to move, how to swallow may require more muscle and stamina and special equipment than my family possesses…some ways of going are a long goodbye..