They are just old people

Just Old People

Just old people, they are

languishing in their beds
or propped up in chairs

some

perking up when a friendly
person greets them
as they pull them back up
in their chairs
or push their flopped
arm or foot back onto the bed

I am quite sure that tired nurse,
that tired assistant,
that tired maintenance man
was friendly for those few minutes
they stopped to chat

or was that just 30 seconds in passing?

And here we are chatting for hours with our friends
sitting in front of another boring TV show,
filing our nails
reading that book for the third time
buying another pair of shoes (instead of a card or flowers
or a picture to hang on their wall or)

We should be ashamed
We probably are

We pick up the phone
and call

no, not our elderly widow or widower who are sitting home
but our best friend

no, not to meet us at the nursing home or assisted living facility
or to go shopping for a card or flowers or

but to meet us at the golf course.

Marcia McLees Bogaert
(MeeAugraphie)
09/27/07

Written as part of the Stop Abuse project linked below…

Yes, I am normally as guilty as the rest of you…. Let’s not any of us feed our guilt anymore….

I also wrote about three other abuses, links to all four can be found by clicking on the red Stop Abuse banner in the right side bar.

Please, if you have something to say about Abuse, any Abuse, speak up, say it…. say it in your blog, post it on someone else’s blog, write it somewhere, say it out loud…. One of us will make a difference. It doesn’t matter which one of us as long as it is someone.