Aggie sits smile-chuckling at nothing much on TV today.
She’s made her shopping list,
And tidied her room.
She cried a little when Patrick called her stupid,
But she seems to forget him when children’s TV comes on.
It’s on the television screen that life makes sense to her.
Aggie, did you put that food in the waste?
No! Aggie is a good girl! Large-eyed-scared.
I smile easily. Soothingly. Of course you are, Aggie.
The same ritual every evening. But I wonder
Just what happened in that huge, rambling institution
She called home.
It’s then I think, for the hundredth time,
Of the pages in her file, the report from the hospital,
By the doctors and the clinicians,
With their tests and scans and
‘I can find no evidence…’
By all accounts a normal child,
Who, just after the war
Got into trouble.
She was sent away for her own good!
A cousin, sharp-spiteful,
But who refuses to say any more.
None of my business, or of yours!
‘There is evidence of a number of fractures,
The upper left radius, several ribs,
The right fibula, particularly poorly healed…’
Have you seen my baby? Asks Aggie, suddenly.
What baby’s that, Aggie?
Distracted-distant.
I have to do the medication, right now.
I’ll talk to you later.
‘There appears to be no reason for her disability,
No birth trauma, no accident,
No diagnosis…’
It’s Aggie’s seventieth birthday, tomorrow.
What would you like to do, Aggie?
Do you want to go somewhere?
Aggie nods.
There is something she’d like to do,
But the words won’t come and the more she tries,
The harder it seems to get, and so
She gets distressed, and cries and runs off
Slipper-slapping to her room.
The door slams.
‘Aggie spends a lot of time crying…’
Mick Canning 
Incredibly moving, Mick
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Thanks, Robbie. I’ve met a few ‘Aggies’, sadly.
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Mick, this is so sad on many levels that if it wasn’t for the sun shining I would cry.
Poor Maggie, remembering something, yet not.
I haven’t met many like I see from your answer you have.
They have all earned our respect .
miriam
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Thanks, Miriam. Yes, society has moved on a bit from those days. It’s not perfect, but at least we no longer lock people up for life just for going against the prevailing moral code.
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Very touching Mick. It’s horrifying just how many girls were abandoned to institutions for what were childhood indiscretions. It happened much less to boys but in either case happened to our everlasting shame.
Hugs
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Thanks, David. It was shameful, and possibly the most horrifying part of it was that some of them were abandoned in these institutions for life.
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Yes, who knows what kind of futures were denied them….or us. Great Healers, Scientists, Good Parents……
Hugs
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So tragic … and yet so real, so believable. I find I want to hug Aggie.
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You would do! The Aggies of this world really are tragic.
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This is good, but also very sad. Especially since it’s based in reality. I can’t imagine how many Aggies there were….
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A goodly number, I’m afraid. Societies have always dealt with those they deem to be immoral in one of two ways – either expel them or lock them up and hide them away as though they don’t exist.
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Really touching words Mick, thoughtful and so well written.
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