Alice – The Old Lady - Poem

Alice – The Old Lady

In her younger days Alice was a very healthy active lady
She went to church every Sunday without fail and during the war she worked in a factory making uniforms
She had a husband and three children, two boys and a girl
Emily, William and Michael – all traditional upstanding names
She lived in a big house with a big garden that she used to tend to
Alice loved to go for long walks in the country
She loved to knit and sew, she used to paint and draw
All that was before a disease called old age came along
Now Alice lives in a residential home

Alice sits in the same chair nearly all day long
It smells of stale urine from an accident long a go
The only time she moves is to go to bed, the toilet or to sit at the table for meals
Life is very dull
The television is on but her vision is too poor to focus on it clearly
Sometimes she chats but her hearing isn’t that great anymore
Her hearing aid makes strange buzzing noises that aids her confusion as she searches for the mystery bee in her ear
Most of the time she just sits in her chair in her own little world, wallowing in self-pity

She needs helps to do most things
Getting dressed takes about half an hour or more
She can no longer do up buttons or zips
Her hands and arms are swollen due to Rheumatoid Arthritis
They are sore and useless to her
She can no longer do the things that used to give her great pleasure like sewing or knitting
She tells the staff to cut them off, dead weight she calls them
She needs help to go to the toilet and to wash and dry herself
She walks just about with the aid of two walking sticks
Soon it will be a wheelchair and hoist
Her steps are short and frail
She has fallen over several times
Once she hit her head but it didn’t knock any sense into her
The last time she broke her ankle
She is unable to climb stairs anymore; luckily the home she is in has got a lift

No one comes to visit her
Her children all live hundreds of miles away now
Her husband died years a go, a name with no face
Cancer, she nursed him till the end
The rest of her family and friends seem to have forgotten about her
Leaving her to rot in this home from home

Alice hardly eats anything anymore
She is pale and thin
Her clothes hang off of her, too baggy for her frail skeleton
Not worth buying new clothes, who will see her, who will care
One of the staff has to feed
Her hands are too swollen to hold a knife and fork
She complains that the food is horrible and that the staff at the home are trying to poison her
If they are she wishes they would get a move on, life is little fun anymore
Plain white fish in a strange unflavoured sauce is not really Alice’s cup of tea

Alice has another problem; her brain doesn’t work that well anymore
The doctors tell her that she is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease
Alice doesn’t understand what that is
All Alice knows is that she forgets things easily these days
She repeats herself over and over again
She does silly things like pouring her cup of coffee into her handbag instead of drinking it
While everyone else laughs at her little accidents she feels embarrassed, humiliated, weak, tortured

Alice has got a weak bladder
She often wets the bed at night
A loss of dignity comes with old age
Lying naked on her bed waiting to be washed
Everything exposed for the entire world to see
Saggy breasts, cracked and dry skin, ulcers and pressure sores – red and inflamed

Alice takes a large number of pills and medicines
She doesn’t know why she takes so many tablets; it is not as if they improve her quality of life
Alice often asks the nurses at the home why they don’t leave her alone to die in peace
They tell her that it is their job to look after her and make her as comfortable as possible
Alice feels like she is in prison and the nurses are her wardens jangling their bunches of jailers keys

Alice prays most nights
It is a silent prayer but it is the same prayer every night
Alice prays that she will go off to sleep and not wake up to face another humiliating day
Alice hates the way she is now
She is nothing better than a vegetable who without pills and constant attention would have died months a go
She wants to be with her husband

Alice goes to bed and repeats her silent prayer to god
The following day she wakes again to face another day of pain and suffering
Maybe tomorrow night her silent prayer will be answered?








This piece was inspired by and is dedicated to a lady called Rachel who I met during a college placement in an old people’s home many years a go now. I changed Rachel’s name to Alice for the piece.