The Poignant Years

With my dear, sweet parents

These are the poignant years. My mother is 88 as I write this, and my father nearing his 87th birthday.  When we moved to California, my parents--who had no wish to go through the trauma of a move--agreed to move with us. In doing so, they sacrificed much for me. While they would have had to make these sacrifices soon, anyway, it felt like these came because of our move: reducing their household and giving many of their things away, moving from their home into a two-bedroom apartment in an assisted living facility, giving up their own car and freedom of driving, narrowing their world even further than it had already narrowed.

The benefits to them? They have assistance any time they need it, which means there are people to help my mother get up when she falls, which she did just last week, again. She does not have the strength to get off the floor, and my dad can't help her. There are people to help decide that my father should go to the emergency room when he becomes ill, which he does on occasion. Their meals are cooked for them. Institutional food is not nearly as pleasant as home-cooked food, although they had mostly quit doing any significant cooking for themselves before the move. There is someone to clean their apartment and wash their clothes. The latter has brought some disasters, including a ruined Chinese brocade dress of my mom's a couple of weeks ago. And my mother dislikes that no one irons their clothes. My parents, who have always looked good as professionals, now look a bit more rumpled.

And a lot more frail.

The two years in California have not been kind to them, but I have to realize that two more years in Washington would not have been kind, either. And we are, all three, so grateful that we can get together often. They are just a 20-minute drive away from me.

The thought comes to me often: people who do not care for their aging parents at close quarters miss a huge education, and often, a huge blessing. My parents's lives teach me constantly during these years.

Out for a shopping trip: we ordered this delightful recliner minus the console for them.
It will arrive in the next six weeks, in a lovely dark forest green.

It is rare that I leave a visit with my parents, without feeling wall-to-wall grateful for my time spent with them. There is a blessing in being with these two people that I just can't explain to anyone. I learn from seeing them struggle with aging. I learn from their words. I learn from their blind spots. I learn from their patience as they wait for a day when I can get over there to help them with some errand. I am blessed by their prayers. I am touched by their gladness to see me, and their little techniques for delaying my departure from some visits.

They are so gracious, and it makes me feel guilty. I really struggle with the living situation we have arranged.  I simply could not work in my job and care for them at the same time, were it up to me. There must be someone to assist at all times. On the other hand, people at the assisted living are far from perfect. They don't reach out to remind and invite my parents to come to social events (many of which are simply not the types of things my parents would do). They seated my parents with the grumpiest couple in the place for their meals, and my parents won't ask for a change of seating arrangement because they don't want to hurt that couple's feelings. But meal after meal is spend in depressing company. The assisted living people know this and respect my parents' wishes to not change. I understand that but I worry over it anyhow. And I worry about their joy in life, where they are situated. There isn't much provided to feed the minds of people who are highly educated. I go over to visit two or three times a week, but the days between visits are long and empty, spent in reading, TV-watching, napping.

I often wonder whether there is something missing, some way I could set up life to be more enjoyable for them in these years. An apartment with caregivers? What about the falling? What about the fact that they prefer a space that they can call their own, without someone else there all the time? What about the cost differential? Would a different assisted living center do better by them? What about the disruption of moving and getting used to new routines when they already feel displaced? What assisted living place would give them as spacious an apartment as they are in? I don't know of any facilities around here that would do any better for them. What if my husband and I moved to a place where they could live in a part of our house? I know that wouldn't work because of their living patterns and the fact that it would be difficult for my husband and me in these years when we need to be be there for each other without distractions. My parents would not wish to be a disruption or burden on our marriage, and they would be, if they lived with us. But am I selfish? I know other people who have an ethic that says they will care for family members and not turn it over to others. I fret and roll the questions over and over in my mind.

"Getting old stinks," my parents have told me. Life lost some of its sparkle when they retired from practicing medicine, lost more of it when conflict entered the family late in life, and lost hope when they stopped going overseas for short-term mission relief stints (when my mom was 80).

As I write this and look at the picture I took this morning of my parents on the way to their church Bible study (with the church they got married in 54 years ago peeking over the trees above my dad's head), tears are running down my face. I wish I were wiser about how to care for them. I wish with all my heart that I could help these years to be more joyful for them. I've fixed all that I know how to fix, but somehow it feels like it's not enough. They are such precious, precious people. They haven't lived their lives perfectly, but they are perfectly committed to the grace of God, and doing the best they know how.

Oh, how I long for heaven when bodies and minds are made new, when love is flawless. Not all people believe in such a thing, but I do, and it's a great comfort to me.