A Touch of Grey
Gen X faces the inevitable. A poem.
“Agnes DeKay,”
my son said in my ear,
“isn’t really a name
that I’d want to have here.”
Her nameplate popped up
in a hallway one day
in the “castle of geezers,”
my father would say.
My parents had moved there
when not doing well
and became sharp observers
of this circle of hell.
In the dining room,
Ethel and Alma and Rita
chewed on bland little burgers
festooned with Velveeta
while Leo and Edwin
(and the weird-visor guy)
would squabble o’er whether
the rolls were too dry.
MY PARENTS are gone now.
My temples are white.
My prostate is starting
to vex me at night.
And my songs? They’re called “oldies.”
Progressive is retro.
My son laughs at me
when I play Berlin’s “Metro.”
One day, there was something
I had to retrieve
from that place where alongside
two deathbeds I’d grieved.
I walked in the door,
heard the music on loud
and awaited a tune
from the Glenn Miller crowd.
But what reached my poor ears
brought a tic to my eye:
not “American Patrol”
but “American Pie.”
And I started to ponder,
as gray fills my hair,
of the days when my ilk
takes up residence there.
THEY’LL SERVE low-salt nachos
and play Depeche Mode
and stream “Family Ties”
— every last episode.
And Kelseys, not Elsies,
will bingo and brunch,
and the walker brigade
will be filled with a bunch
of slow-moving seniors
named Amber and Jen
whose nameplates are solo
since they lost their men.
Their solace will come
(as they cough up their mucus)
from offspring named
Brayden and Noah and Lucas.
My father, he knew
this would all come to be.
“It won’t be long now,”
he’d whisper to me.
Up the road now, today,
he lies, as he must,
dreaming his dreams
and gathering dust.
And despite my denial
of that far-off day
I know I’m soon bound
to join Agnes DeKay.
I read this with the voice of Boris Karloff making Grinchy notes in my head. Here's an epic poem by a sensitive writer, to be read aloud and often while reflecting on our common existence:"whose nameplates are solo since they lost their men." My wife and I are presently hosting my 95 year old special mom as she approaches the end bracket of her life. Eldercare is a fascinating experience. Worthy of poetry.
Gotta say, the timing of seeing this in my feed while visiting with my mother at her new digs ('the home" we jokingly call it) only added to the enjoyment of your poem. BTW, Mom laughed too. However, tonight at dinner, I'm sure I'll look around the dining room through a very different lens! Thanks, Ted, for your always perfect balance of reality, reflection, and humor.