Thank you, President Diane Woodruff and members of the Sacramento Rotary Club. It was a privilege to be your speaker at your meeting on Tuesday. No, I didn’t wear a feather boa as part of my attire. It was a prop for the following poem found beneath these photos. My message was: In the midst of cleaning my mother’s bathroom floor, once I said, “Maybe there’s a poem here,” I was no longer a caregiver cleaning BM off a bathroom floor. I was a poet/caregiver, and that made all the difference in the world.
photos by John Swentowsky of Swentoswsky Photography.com
A Feather Boa and a Toothbrush
It is 3 a.m.
I am on my hands and knees
With toothbrush in one hand,
A glass of hot tap water in my other,
Scrubbing BM off my mother’s
Bathroom floor.
Before a flicker of self pity can set in,
A vivid image enters my mind.
An image of a scarlet feather boa
Impulsively bought from Neiman Marcus,
Delicately wrapped in white tissue
Awaiting in my cedar chest
For some enchanted evening.
The contrast between my illusional lifestyle
Of feather boas, Opium perfume and black velvet
And my own reality of toothbrushes,
Bathroom tiles and BM at 3 a.m.
Overwhelms me with silent laughter.
Kakugawa
from I Am Somebody: Bringing Dignity and Compassion to Alzheimer’s Caregiving
Frances Kakugawa's Blog 