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William Sieghart 07 November 2017 7:00am GMT _ _FOR 20 YEARS, _WILLIAM SIEGHART_ HAS CURED THE SAD AND THE SICK WITH POETRY. NOW HE’LL DO THE SAME FOR YOU CONDITION: _ageing parents_ ALSO
SUITABLE FOR: _loved ones suffering from dementia · illness in parents · loss of respect for parents_ PRESCRIPTION: _Follower by Seamus Heaney_ When we are children, our parents are gods.
They seem unimaginably strong and unfathomably knowledgeable. We find it almost impossible to believe that we will one day be just like them. In some senses, the process of growing up is all
about undermining that initial awe. Eventually, we learn that our parents are just people, and that it’s not actually that hard for us to become people, too. The sad thing, though, is that
our growing up is not the end of the process. There is a symmetry to human life. Just as we learn how easy, how natural it is for us to be strong and competent and proud, our parents are
discovering quite how difficult it can be to remain that way, until the day finally comes when the roles are reversed and the people we idolised more than anyone else become a burden.
Suddenly, we are the adults, and our parents are stumbling behind us like children. It can be very upsetting to watch someone we admire become diminished; and yet this is a trial we all
face, unless we are unlucky enough to lose our parents young. Our mothers and fathers dealt with the same terrible distress before us – and we should remember that in time our children will,
too. There is no remedy for this pain, except the knowledge that it is better than the alternative, which is never to have had our parents at all. They were there for us when we were
helpless; we should take pleasure now in being able to return the favour. Our lives are cyclical, and are meant to be: just as we grow, so we must shrink. There is no such thing in life, or
in human beings themselves, as permanence. Frankly, we might get rather bored if there were. FOLLOWER BY SEAMUS HEANEY My father worked with a horse-plough, His shoulders globed like a full
sail strung Between the shafts and the furrow. The horse strained at his clicking tongue. An expert. He would set the wing And fit the bright steel-pointed sock. The sod rolled over without
breaking. At the headrig, with a single pluck Of reins, the sweating team turned round And back into the land. His eye Narrowed and angled at the ground, Mapping the furrow exactly. I
stumbled in his hob-nailed wake, Fell sometimes on the polished sod; Sometimes he rode me on his back Dipping and rising to his plod. I wanted to grow up and plough, To close one eye,
stiffen my arm. All I ever did was follow In his broad shadow round the farm. I was a nuisance, tripping, falling, Yapping always. But today It is my father who keeps stumbling Behind me,
and will not go away. FROM THE POETRY PHARMACY BY WILLIAM SIEGHART (PARTICULAR, £12.99). POEM COURTESY OF FABER The Poetry Pharmacy | Prescriptions