What do you see when you look at me? What do you see?
When you look at me, what do you think—you?
A cranky old woman, a bit mad,
Her gaze distant... not quite herself,
Who drools when she eats and never answers,
Who, when you speak firmly and say "try,"
Seems not to pay the slightest attention to what you do
And keeps scattering shoes and stockings here and there,
Who, obedient or not, lets you do as you please
With her bath and her meals, just to fill the long gray day.
Is that what you think? Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes—it is not me.
I want to tell you who I am, sitting here so quietly,
Moving when you tell me to, eating when you say.
I am the youngest of ten children, with a father and a mother,
Brothers and sisters who loved each other,
A girl of sixteen, with wings on my feet,
Dreaming of meeting my sweetheart soon.
A bride at twenty, my heart bursting with joy
At the memory of the promises made that day.
I am twenty-five now, and I have a child of my own
Who needs me to build him a home.
A woman of thirty, my child grows so fast,
We are bound to each other by ties that will last.
Forty years old, and soon he will not be here,
But a man stands beside me, watching over me.
Fifty years old: children gather around me again,
We have children again, my beloved and I.
Then came the dark days—my husband dies,
I look toward the future, trembling with fear,
My children are busy raising their own
And I think of the years and the love I have known.
I am old now, and nature is cruel
For she takes her pleasure in making age seem mad.
My body is leaving me, grace and strength abandon me
And where once I had a heart, now there is stone,
But in this old frame, the girl still dwells
Whose old heart swells without ceasing.
I remember the joys, I remember the sorrows
And my life—once more, I live it and love it.
I think of the years that were too brief, that passed too quickly,
And I accept this harsh reality that nothing can last.
So, open your eyes, you who care for me, and look.
Not at the cranky, irritable old woman. Look closer.
You will see me!
A poem found among the belongings of an elderly Irish woman who died in a nursing home (September 1976)