Before I started to write this morning, I read some poems from Billy Collins’ anthology poetry 180. The poems that struck me the most were David Berman’s poem “Snow” and Hal Sirowitz’s poem “I Finally Managed to Speak to Her“.

Perhaps they did not directly influence this poem, but both are direct and have an immediate effect, something I have been working on these past few days.

This poem is basically true–I do often try to get a start on cleaning my shop and my mom, somehow, remembers this, among all the things she does not remember.

Why can’t I just finish cleaning my shop? Mainly as I say here because I don’t know when I’m going to need something.

That’s not exactly right–that’s why I have a hard time throwing things away.

But that’s not exactly right either–I have a hard time throwing things away because I never know when I might need that memory again.

And that is what this poem is really about–memory loss.

Of course, I am not so much concerned with losing my memory as I am with losing my mom. That’s the force I hope that the last line has, that “I’ll be left undone” when my mom is gone.

Perhaps in here also, or at least implied, is that dementia causes the people we love to leave more and more each day.

That’s not quite right–I don’t know if you can tell day to day that my mom’s memory is getting poorer. But over time, yes, you can certainly tell.

One thing I’ve noticed is what I mention here, that she will ask me often “What did you do today?” or the variant, “What are you going to do today?”

She, when I ask the same questions of her, struggles with her answer. Struggles both to remember, but also she struggles with the fact that she doesn’t really do much each day.

I try to get over almost every day and spend time with her or take her out to shop or to grab a meal together.

She is starting to not remember that we’ve done these things even the same day. She called yesterday to see if I’d been there that day, which I had, just a few hours beforehand.

I will say, though this sounds like it must be so hard for me to go through, it isn’t hard, at least not usually.

I have accepted that my mom is losing her memory and that it will get worse. I know that the main thing I can give her right now is my time.

I just feel so blessed that I am able to give her this time. I moved six hundred miles away from home many years ago and visiting my family required driving at least ten hours each way.

But now my mom is here. I can give her my time. That is a blessing.

On the other hand, I do spend a lot of time trying to organize my world, trying to put things in their place so that I can get ready for whatever happens, whenever it happens.

For when I’m left undone.

Ok, WordPress AI, what do you see in this poem?

Yep. Nailed it.