I have worked in hospitals and come across the word invalid many times before but recently was shocked when i looked at it in a different light – ‘in-valid’ and all the feelings that go with a sense of being ‘less than’ or discounted.
This poem is for Jo … and everyone who is trying to be at ease, finding a different way of being in the world, as their ability to function in the way in the way they, and others, have expected is impaired (in her case by a brain tumour)
Please don’t join the dots to make me,
I’m still here – but different lately.
Not just as i was before, and nor are you…
but what is more, there’s not one thing that we can see
that stays the same eternally.
We can’t go back; we can go on –
breathing each breath of this life’s song.
As our lives shift so poignantly,
will you stay in the dance with me?
Will tenderness move through your heart
and help me feel i am a part –
and not apart from,
life?
with love, wendy
