Crabby Old Woman

 

Crabby Old Woman 

When an old lady died in the geriatric ward of a small hospital near Dundee, Scotland, it was believed that she had nothing left of any value.   Later, when the nurses were going through her 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 Ireland.   The old lady's sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas edition of the  News Magazine of the North Ireland Association for Mental Health.  A slide presentation has also been  made based on her simple, but eloquent, poem   And this little old Scottish lady, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this "anonymous" poem winging across the Internet: 
 

    Crabby Old Woman

    What do you see, nurses?
    What do you see?
    What are you thinking
    When you're looking at me?

    A crabby old woman,
    Not very wise,
    Uncertain of habit,
    With faraway eyes?

    Who dribbles her 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 stocking 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 girl of sixteen
    With wings on her feet
    Dreaming that soon now
    A lover she'll meet.

    A bride 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 woman 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 man'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 husband is 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 woman
    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 girl 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 woman;
    Look closer . . . see ME!!



    Remember this poem when you next meet an old
    person who you might brush aside without looking
    at the young soul within...........we will all, one
    day, be there, too!