FOOD FOR THOUGHT

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!