Community story
By Joann Snow Duncanson ©dementiacareinternational.com
Thank you to Joann for giving us permission to share her beautiful poem with our Spark of Life Community. We trust you will enjoy this touching and insightful poem.
Two Mothers
I had two mothers – two mothers I claim;
two different people, yet with the same name.
Two separate women, diverse by design,
but I loved them both for they were both mine.
The first was the mother who carried me here;
she gave birth and nurtured and launched my career.
She was the woman whose features I bear,
complete with the facial expressions I wear.
She gave me memories which follow me yet,
along with examples in life which she set.
As I became older, she some younger grew,
and we’d laugh just as mothers and daughters can do.
But then came the year that her mind clouded so
and it seemed that the mother I’d known soon would go.
So quickly she changed and turned into the other –
a stranger who dressed in the clothes of my mother.
Oh, she looked the same then, at least at arm’s length,
but she was a child now and I was her strength.
So we’d come full circle, we women three –
my mother the first, the second, and me.
Now if my own children should reach such a day
when a new mother comes and the old goes away,
I’d ask of them nothing that I wouldn’t do –
love both of your mothers as both have loved you.