just kill me

a visit to the nursing home, a very sad place

now there is a button to be let into the locked entrance door

down the long halls, between and around residents parked there

visiting a dear friend, but she was not in her room

a neighbor said she was walking down the hall

sure enough there she was, we caught up with her

everybody hates me

do you want to go to back to your room and visit a while? 

no eye contact, just tell me what you want me to do

back to her room, she said she was tired

took off her shoes and laid down for a nap

my legs hurt, my feet are cold

the blanket was pulled up over her purple socks

the left one bulging with the ankle bracelet

I guess you want to kill me

on our way out, once again weaving in and out of the hall folks

passing by the empty recreation room,

buzzed once again through the locked door by the sign

Do Not Let a Resident Leave With You

just kill me

She doesn't belong there, the only patient that can walk the halls unassisted, we are not ready for her to be there. Locked in with fellow inmates, all guilty of the same crime - getting old - either body or mind in lock down. Room and board and meals, walking the halls, looking out the windows, searching for familiar faces.

The smartest woman I have ever known, her mind was sharp as a tack until a few years ago, she started several businesses from the ground up over her lifetime, was an accounting genius. Instead of the terrible disease that robs her brain I like to think she just used up her quota of smarts, maybe there is only a finite number of great ideas or answers to questions, and some people use their brains so intensely and fully that it gets used up, like water squeezed out of a sponge. Oh for a magic cure.

But that is not to be, the memories are lost, the personality gone, the stranger in the nursing home just waiting to die.

We miss you dear friend.