Nursing Home – A Haiku Chronicle
(Feb.24, 2012)
Perfect storm
Of factors at once
Point one way.
——————————
Reaction
When told him the news –
“That sounds good.”
——————————
Mixed signals:
What’s taking so long?
Don’t want to.
——————————
Checking in,
Piles of paperwork –
New roommate.
——————————
Busyness;
New, discordant sounds.
Upsetting?
——————————
I describe
Because he can’t see –
Almost blind.
——————————
He ate well.
I fed him each bite.
Will the staff?
——————————
But I saw
When I fed him lunch,
A cheek’s tear.
——————————
For Mother
65 years wed –
Lonely bed.
——————————
I did well
Till the long trip home –
Feelings welled.
——————————
photo by Susan Sermoneta (Susan NYC) via Flickr
—————————–
* The haiku I write are lines of 3-5-3 syllables instead of 5-7-5.
See Haiku article here for explanation, if needed:
https://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/haiku/
——————————
© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2012.
Bless your heart! Do random check-ins so the nurses/staff never know when to expect you. He’ll be okay!
Thanks. My mother will be visiting him daily except for the day of her surgery and perhaps a day or two afterwards. During those days, I’ll drop in on him and perhaps other members of the family will, too.
A moving, poignant haiku. I know well the feeling of leaving a parent at a nursing home.
Thanks. I hope you feel that I’ve used your photo well.
So sad, you, have my sympathy
Your poems show economy of words and restraint, leaving room for great feeling. They are indeed moving. I especially liked the line, “Will the staff?” It reminds me of when my mom was in the nursing home and I discovered that they weren’t giving her breakfast (and it was all right for her to eat it then) before her early-morning appointment for dialysis. I discussed it with the director of nursing and he assured me this would be rectified. I wasn’t satisfied with “The kitchen isn’t open yet at that time.” So I brought breakfast foods in to be kept in the kitchen, and all I needed was someone to fix her something. Yes, they did it for awhile, but then that stopped. There isn’t much else that made me so angry and frustrated. I agree with Symanntha. Do random checks. Show up at various times so they don’t know when you’re going to be there.
Thanks for the comments and suggestions. We will have to keep a sharp eye on the situation.
I can certainly relate to these Haiku.
Deeply touching. I am especially moved by #8 (But I saw). Beautiful encapsulation of quite a journey, my friend.
Thanks. Haiku seems to be perfectly suited to capture a moment. That one I shared with my readers but not with my family, especially not my mother. It would have been one more arrow into a wounded heart.
The cared for becomes the care giver…
And the cycle is completed.