The Long Goodbye Poem by John F. McCullagh

The thing that killed her has a name

It formed the plaque that scarred her brain.

She embarked upon that one way trip

where names elude and memories slip



This disease is most unkind

It slows the step and clouds the mind

Her daughter daily watched her fade

into a lemure, a ghostly shade.



She was not frail at eighty nine

She’d cold cocked nurses in her time

who came too close with an I.V.

and paid dearly for their ministry.



The heart was strong, but not the mind

Ten years passed, as we count time.

She couldn’t hear or speak our names

How silent then her world became.



She couldn’t eat without an aide,

Or walk without a metal cane.

At the last- the chair with wheels

And we all saw how helpless feels.



Some say death is most unkind

Perhaps, for those before their time-

But for those who linger at his door

There is no gift they wanted more.