Baby Doll

She sat, tranquil like a baby doll.
Then, suddenly agitated,
She was rocking to and fro,
Humming loudly to herself
With sudden outbursts, sparked by images
In her mind of phantom threats.

Ghosts of her past?
Or just a faulty blast of neurons
In the brain
Creating flashes looking like villains
Coming to get her?

The strain upon her face
Wrote of terror in the mind.

People complained,
“Stop that noise. Make her stop.”

And she, inside, prayed to stop these images…
Halt the inner scrimmages…
Give her peace…

“They” isolated her.
It only made it worse.
They cared for her but though they tried
They could make out neither rhyme nor verse
To reason why.
Till one of “Them” said it isn’t her,
You know,
It’s her disease.

It’s just the disease…

Perhaps we can find a way to ease
Her troubled mind. Perhaps, to please
Internal ghosts, we can find a better way,
A better kind of Kind,
To calm her troubled soul.

Perhaps she’s not ready yet to give up the ghost,
as her state of being had us believe;
Perhaps the ghost is not ready yet to give up on her,
as her state of being has us now believe.

They speculated…
Perhaps she’d lost a child,
And her spirit tries to hunt it down
To reclaim it and and find a home for her overflowing love.
Perhaps she’s telling us she wants to live that love again,
Life without the pain.
We must find a way…

They speculated.

They gave a baby doll to her,
Or tried. She waved it off
In disdain,
With a sweep of her hand,
Then sat and stared,
And stayed inside that mood;
And nobody dared to intervene,
For a while.

Perhaps the synapses were snapping right
That day;
Perhaps, they said, going round and round the theme,
She was not “as far gone” as they had thought–
It’s hard to read;
The doctor says there’s no internal bleed.

Time went by, as time always does,
And her condition changed,
Somewhat.

But pity bled because
Her look of sadness touched their hearts,
And they dissected all the parts
Of the human brain they knew about:
This stage is that and that stage is this…
They tried everything.

Almost in despair for her,
Convinced her ghosts were ghosts of childhood–
Her “symptoms” spoke of regression–
They decided now was time
To try again
To combat the bane disturbing her.

They speculated.

They knew she’d been fond of kids
And always got excited when some came in,
And was always sad when they went out.

So when she’d calmed, they tried again.
They re-presented her with that baby doll…
And this time, she reached out–

She accepted the baby doll
And held it out to see.
She smiled.
She caressed its baby cheeks,
Then cradled it in her arms.
She rocked that little baby doll
For hours, seemingly content.
And now she hummed a quieter tune
And seemed to see more tranquil ghosts.

Phantoms who proved to be much better hosts.

Perhaps the terrorist in her tangled dendrons
Had been tamed.
Her synapses sparking quiet.
At least for now.

Picture credit:
my grandmother who has dementia  by Megal0mania • 2 years ago     Perfect sensory activity for people with memory loss.    Re-pinned by www.elephieaprons…    From   http://imgur.com/gallery/ENnXR
My grandmother has dementia, she has had it for 5-6 years and has not been happy in a long time. Not until my mom got the idea of buying her a doll. I don’t know why she thought of this but it has changed my grandmothers life for the better. She actually thinks she is babysitting and she cares for the doll like it’s a real baby. She sings for him/her (sometimes it’s a girl and other times it’s a boy :p), she also brings it out to the other people in the home and for most of them it has the same effect. I thought this was kinda cool. Have a nice day imgurians