THE INEVITABLE PASSAGE OF TIME
It’s funny how time flies. This year marks the 25th anniversary of my high school graduation, and I honestly don’t know where the years went. I look at my face every morning when I’m brushing my teeth and it’s the same face I’ve always looked at. Yeah, there’s less hair and a few grey strands in the beard, some wrinkles around the eyes, but it’s the same basic face.
I’m back home right now, as in my hometown, playing caretaker to my father for a few days. Mom usually fills this role, but she had to travel to California for a week to see her mother, who recently had a pacemaker put in. One of my brothers came up from Baltimore to take the first half of the week, while I take the back end.
Dad is 82 and has Alzheimer’s disease. Mom just turned 78 in August and Gram is now 95. I am blessed to have had all of them in my life for so long, raising me and my brothers, cousins, niece and nephews, providing guidance and wisdom as we grew from childhood to adult. Which makes it all the more interesting to live through this gradual role reversal, where children become caregivers to the adults.
It’s happening in a couple of generations simultaneously. Mom and her siblings, my Aunt Joyce and Uncle Bud, are Gram’s only family. While she lives primarily with Aunt Joyce and her husband (who is himself dealing with health challenges), Mom as the eldest child, plays a major role in managing her finances. Despite their own family responsibilities and individual circumstances, my grandmother’s “children” assume their caretaker duties without equivocation.
I guess that’s a byproduct of raising kids right. They know what to do when situations arise. Dad is simply not capable of taking care of himself any more. The physically strong and opinionated man who raised me, is still strong for a man of his age, but has diminished mentally to a point where he can’t really form coherent sentences, lacks the ability to remember simple details for any length of time, and doesn’t always recognize me when I return home for visits. To think that 25 years ago, he was a teacher in my high school who was well-respected among the faculty and students.
Everyday someone must help him get showered and dressed, brush his teeth--the real ones and the dentures--feed him, and keep him comfortable and occupied, so he doesn’t wander or get into something he shouldn’t be doing. Due to nightly bouts of incontinence, there is a daily cleaning of his bed linens, and thank God for Depends, or there would be even more cleaning to do. As I helped him shower this morning, I was struck by the memory of him bathing me when I was a child. Life seemed to be coming full circle.
While these chores are without a doubt a strain on my mother, they point out how seriously they take the marriage vows they exchanged 54 years ago, “In sickness and in health...” It took my brothers and me quite awhile to get her to accept the outside help she occasionally retains when she just needs a break.
As a family, we’re no longer afraid to talk about the “D” word, death, and what life will be like when we aren’t all here. With everyone in my immediate family now 40 or older, we recognize that while the time we have left may be short, that’s all the more reason to reach out and be there for one another, and to cherish our remaining years together.
Posted by bernie at October 6, 2003 4:42 PMMy family is the kind that lives hard and encounters the D word fairly quickly. Sometimes I wished that I had the time to reach out to my family, and not have to deal with the D word so quickly, and to be able to assist them in their travails.
Much love to you up in Albany. What I missed a little in this post is the state of mind and emotion you're in right now. I hope your doing well.
Posted by: ej at October 6, 2003 5:11 PMI find it refreshing that you have been able to embrace such a tough issue (for me). Too this day, I am struggling with accepting the fact that my parents are aging and rapidly approaching the age where they will require more and more care. This post will certainly give me food for thought.
Posted by: Prime at October 7, 2003 7:07 PMwell i am glad to know that your mom and dad raised wonderful kids that are willing to take care of them when they are in need. and yes you are blessed to have your mother, father, and gram still living i really hope i can live to be their age. you mentioned your father having alzheimer's and how someone has to bathe him, well when my great-granddad was 72 he had parker's disease, so we had to bathe him, help him use the restroom and oh yea he had the depends or whatever brand he used about 13 yrs ago, but yea i know all about taking care of someone that you truly love that raised you and i often think now of my mother and father who are in their 50's about how i will have to take care of them when they can't do for themselves and they always tease me and my brother about taking care of them because we constantly are begging for their help, but i will not mind taking care of them and they can be sure that their daughter will be there for them.
the "d" word is something to deal with but with prayer all will be okay and at least you all are able to talk about it. i hope you are holding up good, sounds like you are. you and your family are in my prayers. take care and be blessed.
Posted by: Lashundra at October 8, 2003 10:06 AM