Take Me Home
A slow goodbye to aging parents
Rob and I had been planning to move back to Maryland this summer. Our apartment lease expires in July, and we were going to move back to our home town just in time for the birth of our ninth grandchild. I had it all worked out. We would find a nice little house to rent, a back yard for the dog, a dining room for bringing our children and grandkids together. And I would be closer to my parents, who are in their eighties and beginning to suffer some medical issues.
Then my sister’s frantic text message urged me to get home as soon as possible, that Mom was in intensive care and (she hadn’t wanted to worry me) Dad’s cognitive abilities were mysteriously and rapidly slipping away.
Within three days, Rob and I were traveling north, the dog and cat sedated in the back seat, and as many of my belongings as I could cram into the trunk. He dropped me off at my parents’ house and headed back to Florida to finish out our lease, pack the rest of our things, and break it to his boss that he was leaving — probably for good. I offer a prayer of thanks to God that I have a husband whose generous heart understands how important this time is for me and my parents. Important enough to leave paradise and return to a past life.
Not my terms
When Mom got home from the hospital, she and Dad both needed full-time care. Not nursing care exactly, but a presence. Someone to sort their pills, do their laundry, fix meals, and help with physical therapy. Someone to ease my sister’s burden of driving them to three to five medical appointments a week and help them up when they fall.
These were not my terms for coming back to Maryland. I had wanted to take a last walk on the beach with Rob, visit our favorite restaurants one last time, see some of the things we never got to on our to-do list. Now I sit in my parent’s house, where they insist on keeping the heat at 80 degrees, the window blinds drawn, and the liberal news channel blaring 24-hours a day, even as they sleep.
Mornings I watch them pierce their fingers with lancets and call out their glucose numbers to each other. They take their blood pressure, crush and swallow pills, and feebly attempt any task they can manage: folding their clothes when I remove them from the dryer, making their own beds, fixing cups of coffee for each other.
Dad’s knees crack as he lowers himself to put lotion on Mom’s swollen legs, and Mom cries when she sees him wandering around the house looking for something he can’t remember, something very important but lost in the fog of his mind.
This is not what I planned, but I want nothing else. I would not trade places with my brother, who enjoyed a lavish Easter dinner with his entire family while I called an ambulance for my dad when he complained of chest pains, anxiety related to his upcoming neurology appointment. I am sad that I have to say no to my older daughter who asks me to babysit or to my younger daughter who wants to bring the kids over to visit. We need to keep things quiet for now. And my hope is that I am also modeling for my kids an example, albeit flawed, of selfless love.
So I am not walking on the beach with my husband or having cocktails overlooking the manatees and dolphins. I am not holding my granddaughter or playing kickball with my grandson in my own backyard. In fact, most of my belongings will likely end up in storage indefinitely as my husband and I stay in the tiny room upstairs in my parents’ house for the foreseeable future.
But I don’t regret these things. Instead, I stand at my mother’s kitchen sink, having just removed her thick compression socks and rubbed her icy feet, and I feel overwhelming gratitude. This is a chance to truly die to myself, to give myself for someone else.
And what better people than the ones who gave so much for me. This is where I belong.
