Alzheimer's Poem: Owen Darnell

After musing about the movie Still Alice, I will now explain the poem part.. first the poem:


Do not ask me to remember,
or try to make me understand,
Let me rest and know you're with me,
Kiss my cheek and hold my hand,
I'm confused beyond your concept,
I am sad and sick and lost,
All I know is that I need you to be with me at all cost,
Do not lose your patience with me,
Do not scold or shun my cry,
I can't help the way I'm living,
Can't be different though I try,
Just remember that I need you,
That the best of me is gone,
Please don't fail to stand beside me,
Love me till my life is done.


I had most recently seen the poem posted on Richard Branson's blog. Thankfully he credited the author! I found an online article from the 14 June, 1996, Orlando, Florida Sentinel Newspaper written by Bo Poertner about Owen Darnell;


"A few months before Esther Darnell died of Alzheimer's disease, she sat in a nursing home and studied her husband's face as if it held some great mystery.

Owen Darnell, 74, of Daytona Beach was all too familiar with his wife's puzzled look. It was the same one he saw when she struggled to read the clock or to understand the TV news.

Esther had been a beautiful, loving and intelligent companion. She had studied at Columbia University and had earned graduate degrees in pharmacology and natural sciences at the University of Havana in Cuba. She had taught high school math.

But the disease gradually tangled her thinking and erased her memory.
....


Owen Darnell wrote about his experience in caring for his wife in a 26-page booklet titled A Room Without Doors. I don't know if he's still alive today, but I'm sure he'd be happy to see this:


A Caregiver's Response by Albert Reinsch, Sr.

(This poem is a humble response to the inspirational and informative poem, An Alzheimer’s Request, by Owen Darnell.)

I shall do my best beloved,
To do all you've asked of me.
When I fail you must forgive me,
For where you are I cannot see.
What I know is that I love you,
More than the world can ever know.
Yet, so often I fail to show it,
I'm so ashamed that this be so.
Please forgive me for my failings,
It is not for lack of trying.
I know you need me to be strong,
But it's so hard when I am crying.
I, too, need you so much my darling,
Until we're renewed in heaven above.
Your smiles reward and give me courage,
Our hugs and kisses seal our love.

Film: Still Alice

I'd seen a poem posted on the internet a lot recently titled "Alzheimer's Poem". Maybe it was unearthed due to the popularity of the 2014 movie Still Alice based on Lisa Genova's (fictional) 2009 book of the same name. In the movie, Julianne Moore is Alice Howland, neuroscientist and linguistics professor who just celebrated her 50th birthday. She is also beginning to suffer from a rare form of early-onset Familial Alzheimer's disease. Moore won the Academy Award for her epic performance of wife, professor, and mother of 3 children slowly losing control of her life due to the devastating illness.

Alice's daughter Lydia asks her what it actually feels like to have Alzheimer's. Her response:

Well, it's not always the same. I have good days and bad days, and on my good days I can, you know, almost pass for a normal person. But on my bad days I feel like I can't find myself. I've always been so defined by my intellect, my language, my articulation and now sometimes I can see the words hanging in front of me and I can't reach them and I don't know who I am. And I don't know what I'm going to lose next. .... Thanks for asking.

Thanks for asking, indeed.

My Captain..

The Soul of Jeanne d’Arc

She came not into the Presence as a martyred saint might come,

Crowned, white-robed and adoring, with very reverence dumb,—

She stood as a straight young soldier, confident, gallant, strong,

Who asks a boon of hit captain in the sudden hush of the drum.

She said: “Now have I stayed too long in this my place of bliss,

With these glad dead that, comforted, forget what sorrow is

Upon that world whose stony stairs they climbed to come to this.

“But lo, a cry hath torn the peace wherein so long I stayed,

Like a trumpet’s call at Heaven’s wall from a herald unafraid,—

A million voices in one cry, ‘Where is the Maid, the Maid?’

“I had forgot from too much joy that olden task of mine,

But I have heard a certain word shatter the chant divine,

Have watched a banner glow and grow before mine eyes for sign.

“I would return to that my land flung in the teeth of war,

I would cast down my robe and crown that pleasure me no more,

And don the armor that I knew, the valiant sword I bore.

“And angels militant shall fling the gates of Heaven wide,

And souls new-dead whose lives were shed like leaves on war’s red tide

Shall cross their swords above our heads and cheer us as we ride.

“For with me goes that soldier saint, Saint Michael of the sword,

And I shall ride on his right side, a page beside his lord,

And men shall follow like swift blades to reap a sure reward.

“Grant that I answer this my call, yea, though the end may be

The naked shame, the biting flame, the last, long agony;

I would go singing down that road where fagots wait for me.

“Mine be the fire about my feet, the smoke above my head;

So might I glow, a torch to show the path my heroes tread;

My Captain! Oh, my Captain, let me go back!” she said.

-- Theodosia Pickering Garrison (1874–1944)

“O Captain! my Captain!”

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills,

For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck,

You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,

The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

But I with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

-- 1865, Walt Whitman's (1819-1892) tribute to American President Abraham Lincoln, upon the news of his death.

Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014), Dead Poets Society: