No old(er) person can convince you that their throbbing knee or sore elbow is what is to come. I hit 40 and shit just went slidin’ down hill. I got an X-ray on my shoulder last week and an MRI yesterday. I tried to go to the gym this week. My body was like, “Who the hell do you think you are?!” As you see your parents age, you are reminded that you too, are aging. As your parent’s health declines, you’re taking mental notes on what you have to look forward to.
Not many will warn you about the tough decisions you’ll have to begin making on your aging parents behalf.
No one will tell you how about the anger and the jealousy and the rage and the depression you will go through as you go through this with a parent while being a parent. No one will tell you stories about losing their shit on a lady cutting your son’s hair and forcing your son to leave mid-haircut because she merely crossed your path and made a simple comment on the wrong day.
Only few will be able to warn and relate to you on the topic of the sandwich generation. If you don’t know what that is, picture this: you don’t sleep because your on edge awaiting updates on your ailing dad. But, you have a daily 6:30 alarm that rudely rouses you so that you can grumpily wake your kids so that they can get dressed, brush their teeth, down some cereal, and make it to the bus stop on time. Then, you hurry to dress yourself so that you can make it down to the hospital prior to shift change for status updates. You stay just long enough for that daily parking charge to hit $8. You gotta make it home before the school bus does. Your house is a mess because you’re never home anymore. But, the tutor is due to arrive directly after the school bus so you break a sweat and a toenail rushing to “decent-ify” your home. When the tutor leaves, it’s soccer practice for one and football for the other. You’re on a journey to locate athletic cups, jerseys, cleats, and sanity. You might cry a little from frustration. But, you just barely make both sport drop-offs in time. You return to the hospital for evening updates. You try to time it just right but upon inserting your parking ticket, a demand for $6 appears on the screen. You rush back to practice(s) to retrieve 2 of your 3 kids. Repeat. All of this, the stress, money toward parking, gas money, go, go, go takes a toll in so many ways. Sandwiches between young kids and ailing parents is a person barely making it. Sandwich generation.
No one can relay to you the sounds, smells, sights, and sensations of experiencing a rest home. You hear horror stories. But, it’s nothing like the real thing. All of these rehabilitation facilities have one thing in common which is the grossest hallway floors you will ever see. And you will only find a select few angels who have chosen not to remove their emotion and heart for survival purposes in order to carry out the tragic and difficult functions of their job.
No one warns you about the caretakers that you hire to allow your parent to live in their own home with paid assistance. Many of these people have no medical background, no shame, and no motivation to actually work toward improving the health of your parent. They eat your food and take your money and nothing else.
No one will tell you about the anxiety; the anxiety stemming from wanting the best for your parent who can’t make the important and uncomfortable decisions on their own. Your whole life, your parents did all they could to keep you safe. When the tables turn, you second guess every decision, every facility, every Doctor, every medication, every treatment because you just don’t know.
Love your parents. Ask the hard questions. Be your parent’s advocate. Cry when you feel like it. Be honest. When someone asks how you’re doing, tell them. When a medical professional treats you as anything less than a concerned daughter, or son, or spouse, call them out on it and ask to speak to their superior.
In this, I’ve been completely devastated. I could lose my father. But, i’m strong as fuck. And I’m proud of how I’ve served my dad and my family most days.
Trust me when I say that you don’t want to mess with someone dealing with anything similar. You will lose. So, instead tell them they’re doing a great job and provide support wherever you can. But, no fluff. When I say fluff, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do” is the ultimate fluff. If you want to be there but don’t know how, send a meal, contact the spouse or an alternate family member to see where there’s need. Send over a housekeeper/window washer/car washer/flowers/something to alleviate the load or brighten the day. Offer to take the kids to practices. Or, find other things to say. Don’t put it on the person to try to find something for your to help with. Also, don’t take it personal when you don’t receive a response to a text or a phone call. Of course, there’s a lot of sitting around scrolling through social media to pass the time at the hospital. But, most of the time, you don’t have the energy or the heart to send that long text detailing the drop in heart rate, the additional seizure, the drop in body temperature, the blood clots, etc. When the patient is in isolation, gloves and a gown are required to stop the spread of MRSA, one of the many things your Dad has contracted being in and out of all of these facilities. Texting with gloves is just stupid hard.
Lastly, what no one can help you to understand until you’re in the thick of it yourself is that others just don’t understand. They will compare your experience to their experience of losing someone other than a parent. I just don’t see the relation as close to what I’m experiencing and it just doesn’t fit my struggle. I thank you for trying to relate through sharing your own journey and I’m sorry. But, I don’t want to hear it.
I lived for my father. I still do. He has lived for me, and my kids, and anyone else that reciprocated his genuine and simple love. Ask anyone. He was and still is everything to me. I could not have had it any better with him as my dad. We talked every day on the phone. He brought me a school lunch that he packed at home and would bring to my house full of all the stuff I loved. It would be 7 PM at night and even though he’d have to be up at 4 AM for work., he’d make the drive in order to visit and bring happiness to my day. When my son broke his collarbone, I called him. He almost cried. I remember his exact words, “Oh Dusky. That’s awful. That just makes me sick. I’d do anything to trade places with him right now. Poor kid. I’m just sick about this.” He offered to come be with me even though he could no longer drive or even get around much. Any time I had a problem, he listened, he heard me, and he felt for me. He attended what sports of my son’s that he could. He can’t see because of his macular degeneration. But, he was there. That’s the thing about parents that makes loss and grief and struggle different from other loss.
There is no fucking handbook for this. If my rant can be a warning to others as to what’s to come as our parents age and decline, I’ll have done my good deed for the day.
“No matter how far we come, our parents are always in us.”
“The most important thing that parents can teach their children is how to get along without them.”
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