When Parents have to die in an old age home

POEM

WISH I COULD DO MORE                                                               

It’s what everybody wanted

You wanted it too

To become stiff, cold…forever.

It’s happened now.

You cease to be, you are no more.

Anyway you never existed

Except for these four walls

Where many like you

Served life sentence – your crime: `Getting old and senile’.

I know it pains to see you unwanted

Even when you have surrendered your life

Yet they don’t want to take that last trouble

Of igniting that match-stick

Or trashing you down where in minutes you will turn into ash.

Don’t feel bad, at least there are good Samaritans

If not good sons and daughters

Who will travel with you in the hearse van

To bid you the final adieu.

Anyway, they bid you adieu

The day they dumped you in this Home.

For them, your heart had stopped beating then.

You had been ousted from their existence ever since.

I know you wiped their tears when they were small and helpless

I know you drained your finances so that they stand on their two feet.

I know you spent selfless nights when they were sick.

I know you bent backwards to protect them, to pray for them.

I know you had great expectations from them for you.

I know you thought you taught them moral and social responsibility.

But some never learn, until they are themselves taught a lesson.

I know by then it is too late, but what to do?

`Be Selfish’ – the marketing mantra has overpowered your good upbringing.

I apologise to you. Wish I could do more.

VINITA DESHMUKH