by

Hindsight

Hindsight

wrinkly skin thin as tissue paper
her shrunken skeleton icicle brittle
betraying
all her eighty-one years

yet between her thinning surface
and rickety bones
with all her hopes and imaginings
she is still eighteen

her blood flows just as warm
nerve fibers crackle
with the same electricity
as all those years ago

her brain just as alive
her soul just as eager
for adventure,
for love

in the mirror even her age reverses
whether on a slip of paper
or by visions reflected
from her cataract peepers

though now the dreams from long ago—
some realized, some not—
are the stuff of nostalgia
and sometimes bittersweet

for now she knows
some of those dreams
have lost their chance
to become real

and some
might better have been
unrealized
after all

what we wanted at eighteen
isn’t always what we’ll wish we’d had
when the years have vanished
before our rheumy eyes.

 

9 thoughts on “Hindsight”

  2. I saw those unwanted changes in my own mother as I cared for her from the ages of 70-95 (and now see them in myself – scary)! I found it so helpful to give her something specific to look forward to on a daily basis…often a tasty treat or a CD with the music she loved, and we would share the treat or music together. As long as she was still living, it gave her a focus.

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