Transformation/Declination

Something happens starting in your forties and moving on.  Up to this point we live our lives independently.  We spend years separating ourselves from our parents and learning how to function on our own.  Sure, parents are always there to help out with advice or to fix something but we are mostly focused on establishing our own lives and families. We have our own children now and they have so many needs.  We have jobs and mortgages to pay.  When something breaks we have to fix it, when its time to eat, we have to make it.  While all this is going on at some point in life our parents start to need us more.  It can happen very slowly and often we don't even perceive the change yet it happens.

As I look around at my friends who share my age I can see it happening.  These days I see it quite brilliantly in the life of my father who is now in his 60's and has a mother in her 90's.   I see it in the life of my dear friend Peggy whose father in law spent his final days with them.  I see it coming like a freight train in the life of my friend Dave as his father's health declines bit by bit.

I suppose in a morbid way I escaped much of this.  My mother died from cancer in her 60's before she started to need me more than I needed her.  My natural father killed himself in his 60's with substance abuse.  Only the father that raised me remains.  While he battles his own health care issues his attention is now focused on the life of his 94 year old mother.

It is difficult for me to imagine how life must look from her perspective.  She has been living on her own for 94 years and now she needs help.  The problem is, after 94 years of independence she doesn't want to admit it.  Rationally, I don't know why needing help at 94 is so much different than 44.  If I was in need health wise I would accept a visiting nurse or someone to bring me my food.  Yet perhaps when you add another 54 years on to of that willing acceptance disappears in the mist.

I have given this great thought and tried to put myself in the mind of my grandmother.  After playing out many scenarios my final solution is that by accepting help she is hastening her death.  It is kind of like the hearing aid.  For years she need one but wouldn't use one.  Why?  Because using one meant she was growing deaf.  Somewhere deep inside her psyche she believes that the longer she stays independent the longer she forestalls the inevitable.

So at this moment my father prepares himself to make a walk.  From his perspective it must feel as dreadful as the walk of a prisoner to his execution.  It is one thing if you are confronting an unrelated person but the anxiety of having to confront your own mother must be tremendous.  To have to tell her that it is time to surrender the independence she has felt for her entire life is a job I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.  This said, somewhere deep inside she must know the source is love and concern.  She must understand that she needs a little help.   Somewhere within all the fight, all the protest she must know that his desire to help her is simply a reflection of his love. 

Growing old is not easy.  Each stage of life has it's own challenges.  It seems like not a day goes by that some new discomfort arises coupled with some new challenge.  I always wonder if it is just happening or if it is happening because I am growing older.

Some day God willing if I don't die early I will need help.  When that day comes I give my son full permission to open the book where these words are written and read them back to me.  Maybe he will just follow it with something like... "Pop, I am doing this because I love you."