As Our Parents Age

I remember when I first became aware that my father was really going downhill mentally. Mom and Dad were visiting us and he talked about the money he had in their checkbook. He told me how much he was planning to write a check for to our church.

My first thought was "that's wonderful," but then I thought, how can they afford that? It didn't take much urging for him to show me the checkbook. In retrospect, I'm sure he was a little puzzled himself. The balance showed five figures, not something anyone would ordinarily keep in their checkbook, and certainly didn't reflect his true balance. As I looked at the checkbook some more, I discovered he had entered an extra digit when he went from one page to the next in his register.

I felt the ground shift: my father who had always tended to all of our family's finances, who my mother depended on completely in that department, couldn't even find his mistake.

Stella Mora Henry, an RN, co-owner and founder of an assisted living facility and author of the book The Eldercare Handbook, says that many times we get into caregiving for our parents without even realizing it. Stella and dozens of others contributed very helpful interviews to our office, Mennonite Media, for a documentary called Embracing Aging: Families Facing Change www.embracingaging.com that will appear on some ABC-TV stations beginning January 6. I will use material from these interviews and my own and friends' experiences for the next three columns.

"We see their needs before they do," said one daughter in reflecting on the caregiving that she is involved with for her in-laws. Sometimes it is the children who live at a distance who actually see those needs first, because those who are nearby don't see the gradual changes.

Other times, parents are "up" for a visit when a son or daughter comes in from a distance and are mentally more alert and may try to present a rosier picture than the nearby sibling has been seeing. This sets up disagreement between the siblings. "You always get hyper about nothing," a sibling may say. Mom is doing just fine!" Old pecking orders and styles of communicating resurface.

I recently got to know my sisters and brother much better again after many years of not having a lot of close communication. Like most of us in North America, we were all busy with jobs, careers, or our own children and grandchildren. As dad "went downhill" as they say, we began to work more closely with each other and with Mom in making decisions, especially about his care. We were all in the room together a week before his death when the doctor talked to us and we agreed that the best thing to do for Dad was not to do any heroic measures at the age of 89 with failing kidneys and advanced diabetes. I was so glad for the company of my brother and my sisters.

Like another woman says in the documentary, "I don't know how people do it who don't have siblings, if both parents get sick." Janet Kennedy and her siblings are stretched providing care for a father with chronic leukemia, and a mother with advanced Alzheimer's. Her father was getting very run down worrying about his wife and commuting 45 miles between the hospital and home.

Different children frequently take on the roles that are best suited to their personality: one handles finances, another transportation issues, another physical needs like feeding or helping with toileting. A nurse or doctor in the family gets asked all the medical questions, and is consulted for medical decisions. No wonder the Bible says in a contemporary version, "Have a lot of children to take care of you in your old age.... The more you have, the better off you will be." (Psalms 127:4,5)

So what happens when there are no children, or only one, or they live across the country or the world? That is where the community comes in, and our communities of faith, and even some new options for making community where there is none. We'll look at how others have found helpful solutions in my next column.

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Contributed by Melodie Davis: MelodieD@MennoMedia.org Melodie is the author of eight books and writes a syndicated newspaper column, Another Way