At 89, Dad has lost much of his story to Alzheimer's. He lives in the moment, something usually only children are good at. At 90, Mom is Dad's sole caregiver. She carries the weight of past, present, and future ~ for both of them. Recently, to give herself a "day off" each week, Mom has taken Dad to an adult day care center. He greatly dislikes it there because he perceives other members as "patients," whom he doesn't fit in with.
Helping balance that tension will be a new challenge for my siblings and me, who want to help our parents stay in their home as long as possible. For the four of us kids, drawing nearer to our parents in this stage of their lives produces mixed emotions ~ joy in their companionship and love, sadness for their losses and difficulties, and our own progressive grief ~ another mixture of past, present, and future.
I thank the Lord for my parents' good health, but their situation is quite fragile, like watching America's Funniest Home Videos when a person's left foot is in one rowboat and his right foot is in another, and you just know the splits and a splash are coming. Both Mom and Dad dodder and tip, and if either lists to port or starboard a few degrees too far, it will be life-changing for all of us. And it won't be a funny video.
Often when I catch myself off-balance or forget what I ate for breakfast that morning, I see in my parents, myself 30 years from now. I think I've gotten slower than usual, too, just hanging around them. I know even a little elder care carries emotional weight, but it doesn't make sense that I myself would feel so much older. Yet I haven't been able to shake that feeling for more than a year.
... Until a few weeks ago when a retirement planning workshop presenter asked the audience if we felt younger than our age, our actual age, or older. Somehow, saying out loud that I have been feeling older than my age seemed to dissolve my emotional dowager's hump, and I became once again a reasonably healthy middle-aged woman walking tall with pep in my step. Just in time for the adventure of accompanying Dad to day care.
To be continued ...
On the
day after Mothers Day, my vases tell a short story about a longer story, a one-day
flash about a 10,950-day saga, a child’s pop-up book about a thumping
three-inch tome. I love hosting Mothers Day parties. They are my chances to
make my house “pop” once a year to honor the woman who made our family home lovely
for decades. My chances to practice “cuisine-art” once a year for Mom, who
lovingly fed four children about 21,900 nutritious meals. My chances to gather
loved ones to celebrate her, as she did for our special occasions as we grew
up. One day a year is so inadequate a thank-you, the only way I can think of to
truly lavish upon Mom is to fill the house with flowers.
Today,
the day after yesterday’s Mothers Day party, seeing so many vases around my
house brings a smile to my face. I had put two little vases on the patio table
where we ate appetizers. One vase of tulips was on the dining table where we
ate dinner. More tulips graced the living room. 
The three large vases are now
empty because I invited my sister and my mom to split two huge bouquets to take
home and enjoy. Yesterday two of these vases had overflowed with every color of
mum, carnation, and flowers I don’t know the names of (and forgot to photograph); the third vase held
long-stemmed red roses brought by my niece for her mom and grandmother. The
empty pink vase was the same vase my mother used to put a profusion of pink and white peonies
in every spring when I was little. I can still see her standing in her kitchen
to place each stem just so. 
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