When I was 9 and 10 years old I used to go to work with my mother in the summer. She worked 11pm to 7am at the local nursing home in Bernie Missouri and I would answer the call lights of the patients helping them with their needs until she quit going to work for Headstart. Then when I was 14 years old I had my first volunteer job, it was at a nursing home in McAllen Texas, I was given an award for working 150 hours in 4 months and then again when we moved to Grand Prairie that year I earned another 150 hours in the Geratric Ward of the Grand Prairie Hospital. After High School my first nursing Job was at a nursing home in Grand Prairie Tx and then again in Nevada Iowa until I couldn't do the job anymore with pregnancy complications. I tell you this so you'll know why I am posting this piece, and I hope it will reach you the way it should and your heart will be open.
Love From Dixie
CRABBY OLD MAN
When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a small hospital near Tampa, Florida, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value.
Later, when the nurses were going through his meager possessions, They found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital.
One nurse took her copy to Missouri . The old man's sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas edition of the News Magazine of the St. Louis Association for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on his simple, but eloquent, poem.
Crabby Old Man
What do you see nurses? ...What do you see?
What are you thinking......when you're looking at me?
A crabby old man,.....not very wise,
Uncertain of habit ........with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles his food.......and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice .....'I do wish you'd try!'
Who seems not to notice ....the things that you do.
And forever is losing .............. A sock or shoe?
Who, resisting or not...........lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding ... The long day to fill?
Is that what you're thinking?.......Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse......you're not looking at me.
I'll tell you who I am ......... As I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding,.......as I eat at your will.
I'm a small child of Ten.......with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters .........who love one another
A young boy of Sixteen ..with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now..........a lover he'll meet.
A groom soon at Twenty ........my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows........that I promised to keep.
At Twenty-Five, now ........ I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide ....And a secure happy home.
A man of Thirty ........... My young now grown fast,
Bound to each other ....... With ties that should last.
At Forty, my young sons ....have grown and are gone,
But my woman's beside me.......to see I don't mourn.
At Fifty, once more, ......... Babies play 'round my knee,
Again, we know children ........ My loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me ...... My wife is now dead.
I look at the future ............I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing......young of their own.
And I think of the years...... And the love that I've known.
I'm now an old man.........and nature is cruel.
'Tis jest to make old age .......look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles..........grace and vigor, depart.
There is now a stone........where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass ..... A young guy still dwells,
And now and again ........my battered heart swells.
I remember the joys..............I remember the pain.
And I'm loving and living.............life over again.
I think of the years ..all too few......gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact........that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people .........open and see.
Not a crabby old man.....Look closer....see........ME!!
Remember this poem when you next meet an older person who you might brush aside without looking at the young soul within.....we will all, one day, be there, too!
