Day Quote. Clinical Version.
This is actually from some of my school work. It’s from an article I had to read about Dementia and behaviors associated with. Our focus is on the older patient right now and how to best care for them and the many changes that occur with advancing age. I thought this was smart and sentimental and inspires me to be kind, always.
My Stepfather in the Nursing Home
For lunch he wears a clean white shirt,
strapped into his wheelchair with his hair
smoothed back, the shoulders
of his good Brooks Brothers jacket
straight. He takes a tiny sip of water,
puts down his glass, forgets and picks it up,
twelve times. Strangers he once knew
pass through the lobby of his mind,
ask him questions he can’t answer,
change his sheets and towels.
He throws his tray across the room
and howls the hotel’s lost his luggage
just when he’s close to a big deal.
He can’t find a pencil, does the math
in his head, and everyone’s stealing
his money. He tries to tell the nurse
he’ll get her a job in sporting goods
(the company he built from scratch,
nights, weekends), but the sentences
slur like acrobats who’ve lost their timing.
I remember he’d choke up reading
every heartbreak story in the Denver Post.
Afterwards he’d send a check.
—Wendy Drexler, senior editor at Educators Publishing Service, Cambridge, MA
just shy of pretty 
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