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Look at this classic nineteenth-century illusion,what do you see. an old woman or a young girl? Growing Old
Scotland, it was felt that she had nothing left of any value. Later, when the nurses were going through her meager possessions, they found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital. One nurse took her copy to Ireland. The old lady's sole bequest to Posterity has since appeared in the Christmas edition of the News Magazine of the North Ireland Association for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on her simple, but eloquent poem. ...And this little old Scottish lady, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this "anonymous" poem winging across the Internet. Goes to show that we all leave-- "SOME footprints in time".... An Old Lady's Poem What do you see, nurses, what do you see? What are you thinking
when you're
Who dribbles her food and makes no reply when you say in a
loud voice, "I do wish
Who seems not to notice the things that you do, And forever
is losing a stocking or
Who, resisting or not, lets you do as you will, with bathing
and feeding, the long day
Is that what you're thinking? Is that what you see? Then open
your eyes, nurse;
I'll tell you who I am as I sit here so still, as I do at your
bidding, as I eat at your
I'm a small child of ten ...with a father and mother, Brothers
and sisters, who love
A young girl of sixteen with wings on her feet; dreaming that
soon now a lover
A bride soon at twenty, my heart gives a leap, remembering
the vows that I
At twenty-five now, I have young of my own, who need me to
guide, and a secure
A woman of thirty, my young now grown fast, Bound to each other
with ties that
At forty, my young sons have grown and are gone, but my man's
beside me to see I
At fifty once more, babies play round my knee, again we know
children, my loved
Dark days are upon me, my husband is dead; I look at the future,
I shudder with
For my young are all rearing young of their own, and I think
of the years and the
I'm now an old woman...and nature is cruel; Tis jest to make
old age look like a fool.
But inside this old carcass a young girl still dwells, and
now and again my battered
So open your
eyes, nurses, open and see, not a crabby old woman;
Remember this poem when you next meet an old person whom you
might brush aside
... We will one day be there, too!
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