Authors

  1. KUHN, DANIEL MSW

Article Content

How is it they named the disease after him?

 

After all, he did not have it.

 

He merely identified it before and after your demise.

 

Yet you had to endure the long loneliness

 

Forgetting near and far and telling them that you had lost yourself.

 

Your husband had tried so hard to keep your memory alive

 

But failing that he sent you to the experts in Frankfurt.

 

What were they thinking when they put you in a cold isolation room?

 

Was it to help you or to help them deal with their own confusion?

 

Alzheimer wrote that you were agitated and screamed with fear.

 

You could not remember the objects shown,

 

Looked desperately for something or someone familiar, And carried things to and fro as warm security blankets,

 

Paraphrasic derailments and forms of forgetfulness

 

All add up to something strange and unnamed

 

A peculiar disease of the cerebral cortex indeed.

 

Only the pathologist can tell for sure what lurks beneath.

 

Meanwhile, you repeat that you lost yourself and call out for the twins.

 

But no one wants to hear your side of the story.

 

You are just a patient, doing time as all good patients should do.

 

They could not read your disordered mind. They would not learn your twisted language.

 

They tried but soon gave up looking for you.

 

And so you lost yourself.

 

Over and over you told them, "I have lost myself."

 

Until you lost your voice, your life, and your name.

 

Blaming a victim like you used to be much easier

 

When we thought we knew what was best.

 

Now your descendants number in the millions.

 

Although most slip gently into the darkening night

 

Many refuse to rest without a good fight.

 

They insist there is more life to live and wisdom to give.

 

Yes, they want a "Safe Return" but would rather not get lost.

 

They want to teach us to read their disordered minds

 

And to learn the heart's vocabulary and rekindle the soul's fire

 

And connect on their terms-as deep calls unto deep

 

So that no one's story and no one's name are forgotten again.

 

You will not lose yourself, dear friends of Auguste Unless we stop looking for you.