'Alzheimers' Poem by David Bennett

'ALZHEIMERS'

He looked across at the woman he had loved for over fifty years,
She looked straight back at him wondering who he was,
Because she didn't recognise him,
They had both been affected by Alzheimers or Dementia if you call it,
He held her hand she didn't understand!
Though he held it with so much love she could not comprehend him,
Four children they had bred with care and love, She didnt understand them,
Though she had nursed them at her breast and wiped away their tears,
Grandchildren and Great grandchildren on the way, she would never live to enjoy them,
He had tried so hard to cope alone, with so much loving and sometimes tears,
But at last because of his own ailing health, he had had to seek some help,
So nursing home for her special needs was where her life was spent,
This cruel disease where they die twice, twice you have to grieve them,
She had died to him once when her mind went, and he would grieve once again when soon she physically she would leave him,
He went to see her everyday, sometimes he sat there eight hours
there all alone,
Smiling at her holding her hand, the occasional smile returned to him,
Alzheimers this cruel disease when will they understand it?

David Bennett.