The Next Phase

Baby, toddler, child, teenager, adult, wife, parent, parent to your parents. This is how the phases of most peoples lives go. We grow up, we get older, we get old, then we die. So, this is no big mystery or surprise.

Even though I know what the next phase is, it is no less heartbreaking. All most everyone I have lost in my family has pretty much been one day they were here and the next day they were gone. The shock was like a wet smelly blanket but I have vivid, lively memories of most of them.

When my brother passed away a couple of years ago from cancer, it was the first time of watching someone I loved slipping away. Dwindling out of our reach. I honestly can say, I don't know which one is easier.

I am entering the next phase of my life where I am becoming the parent to my parents. I don't know

how else to say it but it stinks! What stinks is not the commitment of it but the fact that I feel like someone just sat a sand timer in front of me and said here's what you have left. I can see changes from month to month and week to week in behaviors, memory and health.

We have forever left with our parents, right? As I've gotten old I realized that my parents aren't as old as I thought they were. Or I used to think that. I am facing that, yes, they are that old now.

I would not say that I grew up being daddy's little girl. He had 4 girls, so none of us really stood out. I will still argue with my sister Carol that I'm his favorite though (smiling). I didn't grow up with that typically father/daughter relationship. A lot of things factored into that including an addiction. But it was my life. For all the bad times, there were good one too. I have accepted that they did the best with what they had and knew.

I realize now that it has always been in the back of my head that I had a lifetime for those heartbreaks to be mended. Someday we would get around to those park bench talks where I would hear stories from his childhood and we would bond over Sunday lunches together.

Now that the next phase is here I see that those things are not going to happen. My window has closed, or rather it has closed on the view I thought I would have of us by now.

I am accepting that we bond over different things. We compare the newest "As Seen on TV" products and what our internet download and upload speeds are. We bond over college football.

But when I called my dad a couple of months ago when the championship game was coming on to get my few minutes of pre-game chatter and he didn't even realize that there was a game one, I knew we were entering the post game show.

As much as it hurts my heart to remind him to change clothes, reset his passwords, monitor his

medicine, reset his passwords, encourage him to use his cane, reset his passwords, change his sheets, etc......I am getting time with both of them that I probably wouldn't otherwise. Yeah, for different reasons I am the primary caretaker out of all my siblings, but I am also the one getting the one on one with them. When he says "Tam I sure do love you", it's all worth it.

I have learned after all these years that I get my sense of humor from my dad. I've never seen him as a funny person before but he is. Several months back after being called back to the doctors office to discuss test results unexpectedly, I drove him there. It was a kinda quiet ride. We tried to talk but the fear that was weighing on both of us was too much. After not hearing the 'cancer' word from the doctor my dad says "Doc you scared me to death. I thought you were gonna tell me I was pregnant!"

I am making amends with the past at the same time of facing the present. I am slowing getting to ask the questions I want to ask and say the things I want to say. I know my dad has made a lot of mistakes but for me and him.....we're good.

And in seeing that my mom is having some trouble understanding all of this I know that I'm in training to take care of her too not too far from now. But I've been blessed with many years with both of my parents. I understand its rare to still have both of them and for that I am thankful.

So I will keep resetting his passwords and telling (and listening) to the same stories with my mom.

 
For these lemons that have been handed to me, I think I will make a lemon pie and share half of it with my parents.

Until next time~ Safe Picking!