� The following poem was found on the bedside table of an elderly woman after her death at an extended care facility.

Crabbit Old Woman

What do you see nurses,

What do you see?

Are you thinking,

When you look at me;

A crabbit old woman,

Not very wise,

Undertain of habit,

With far away eyes

Who dribbles her food

And makes no reply

When you say in a loud voice

"I do wish you'd try,"

Who seems not to notice

The things that you do,

And is forever losing

A stocking or shoe,

Who, unresisting or not,

Lets you do as you will,

With bathing and feeding,

The long day to fill,

Is that what you're thinking,

Is that what you see?

Then open your eyes nurse.

You're not looking at me.

As I tell you who I am,

As I sit here so still,

As I rise at your bidding,

As I eat at your will.

I'm a small child of ten

With a mother and father

Brothers and sisters,

Who love one another.

A young girl of sixteen,

With wings on her feet,

Dreaming soon now

A lover she'll meet;

A bride soon at twenty;

My heart gives a leap,

Remembering the vows

That I promised to keep;

At twenty five now

I have young of my own,

Who need me to build

A secure, happy home.

A young woman of thirty;

My young now grow fast,

Bound to each other

With ties that should last;

At forty, my young ones,

Now grown, will soon be gone,

But my man stays beside me,

To see I don't mourn.

At fifty once more,

Babes play round my knee.

Again we know children,

My loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me,

My husband is dead,

I look at the future,

I shudder with dread,

For my young are all busy,

Rearing young of their own,

And I think of the years,

And the love I have known.

I'm an old woman now,

And nature is cruel.

'Tis her jest to make old age

To look like a fool.

The body is crumpled,

Grace and vigor depart.

There is now a stone

Where I once had a heart.

But inside this old carcass,

A young girl still dwells,

And now and again,

My battered heart swells.

I remember the joys,

I remember the pain,

And I'm loving and living

Life over again.

I think of the years,

All too few,

Gone too fast,

And accept the stark fact

That nothing can last.

So open your eyes nurses,

Open and see,

Not a crabbit old woman;

Look closer . . . see ME.