Journal. Elderly parents
Yay! It’s travel day! I have very much enjoyed the time at V’s, and I am very much ready for a change of scenery. Well, I’ll have that for the next two days of travel. Then I will be a (very comfortable) guest in a basement with nothing but walls to look at for a while. And then a guest in a (very comfortable) back bedroom for a while. Scenery is not going to be something I experience much for the next month. I’m trying to gear myself up for feeling cooped up during my favorite season. I don’t suppose one can.
A pretty stiff wind is blowing through the pines, and a real storm front is working up steam. I hope to get ahead of it. Mom is worried about me getting into snow on the passes, but I don’t think it’s likely. I keep having to realize that she’s old, and the world looks a lot more unmanageable to her. I haven’t told her about the bear, and I hope I don’t spill the beans while I’m there. I feel like I’m leading a double life all of a sudden. :D
There is one poofy pink cloud among all the gray. Shine brightly while you can, little cloud! I’m cheering you on! Oh. It’s gone all gray already. Ah, but another has taken its place. Sunrise is such an adventure. As the guy on Very British Problems would say, I’m ready for a lie-down and a biscuit now.
Apparently my mind is scattered today. The one thing I want to think about is being with Mom and Dad. They change so quickly now. Even in the last six weeks since I’ve seen them, their voices sound different when we talk. Dad’s more uncertain about how to do things. Mom is talking a little more slowly. It’s tiny changes, and certainly nothing that’s getting in the way of their rigorous coffee schedule. Two more baristas fell before their charm just last week. Mom is baking cookies for them already.
So I’m not worried for them, exactly, except to the extent that one always worries about 90+ year-olds. I’m more trying to remind myself to get to know who they are now and love them for how they are now instead of getting frustrated because they’re not who they’ve always been and who I’ve counted on them being my whole life. When most of my friends’ parents are already dead, I feel spoiled for worrying about how to deal with my astonishingly healthy, happy Mom and Dad.
But you have to grieve and fall in love again so quickly when they’re this old—I’m grieving the loss of who they’ve always been, but I’m also grieving who they were a year ago, and 3 months ago, while trying to see them for who they are now so that I give them the full heart they deserve and also don’t lose this time with them. And they resemble who they’ve always been so much that you go along on autopilot, but then it’s disconcerting when they can’t do or remember things or get frightened by potential snow on mountain passes when the forecast is for 50 degrees and rain.
Uff da. I’ve got to get going. Looking back on what I’ve written, there’s a lot of emphasis on now. That matters.