Scratchin' Out A Little Living

My column has generally been about economics and systems that could be employed on a macrolevel to ease the pain of the high cost of living. Well,today’s column is about aging parents. If you’re like me and stumbling through the morass of middle-age, you probably have one and maybe two parents left if they have been very lucky. I have one mother. Father passed away decades ago. My mother is 82 and in some decline. I’m pretty sure she will not read this, so I’m just gonna be honest. Her driving skills are deteriorating, her mobility isn’t great, and her best friend lost her license due to vision issues. We’re all gonna get there one day, and we’ll probably say the same thing my mom says every Sunday when I talk to her: “I can’t believe I’m this old.”

She has made me promise to never put her in a nursing home. She once asked me to live with her. I cannot live with my mom. For reasons that are way too lengthy, complicated, and bizarre to go into in this forum, I cannot live with my mom. I also cannot afford to hire a live-in nurse or carer to make sure her needs are met. I’m mostly broke (that’s why I wrote about Universal Basic Income - I want it). I can, however, live near her, and so I am moving from Grants back to the small Midwestern town that I grew up in to live near her, so that I can assist her as she moves through the December of her life. This is not a selfless act; affordable housing has been provided.

My mom is still nimble enough to prepare her own meals and straighten up her house and get downstairs to the laundry room even if it takes her a half hour, but she needs someone to check on her and bring groceries in from the trunk of her car because she can’t carry heavy bags without effort and often ends up bringing in single item loads. I have found a can of string beans in the trunk. She needs help with her yard, and if she has to drive to Springfield to see the eye doctor, she really would need a driver at this point.

I sort of veered off track a bit because the real point of this story is to discuss the challenge of caring for an aging parent if that parent or parents didn’t take care of you. How do you step into the carer role with an open heart for someone who did not or could not do the same for you? Over the years I have intentionally maintained contact with my mother even when it may have been healthier to close the door. I’m not one of those ‘blood is thicker than water’ people, not at all. But, I guess I am of the belief that most people do the best they can, and often their best is not too good. They simply don’t understand how to love another human being, and then I have to ask myself ‘what happened in their life that made them so vacant, so unavailable, and even cruel’? It was probably something horrible, and understanding that a parent who can’t/won’t/doesn’t know how to parent probably suffered somewhere back in their own life, led me to forgiveness.

Forgiveness is hard. When you are able to see that person who is also your parent as an individual separate from you, just see them as an aging adult in need who has suffered so terribly in their earth experience that they were unable to nurture your journey, you might reach a place of forgiveness so that you are able to help with a big spirit.

Forgiveness, in my experience, can lighten your load. Clinging to and nurturing old wounds will never help you build a bridge with a parent. A feeling of lightness can be achieved when you let something go because you now have a deeper understanding of the whole big mess. If you’re truly adventurous, you can take it a step further and throw some kindness into the mix. It’s amazing what happens when I pause, and instead of reacting in a knee jerk fashion to a comment that hits me the wrong way, but calmly consider who I’m dealing with, what she may have gone through to have become This Person, and I offer kindness. It’s an intentional decision because I want to maintain a good relationship with my mom. This practice has been life changing.

I can genuinely laugh with my mom now. No, I will not live with her because I value my mental health, but I can live close by and offer good support. No, our relationship is not perfect by any means, and I routinely pull the phone away from my ear and look at it in that ‘I can’t believe you just said that’ way that we do when we hear insanity! But, my mom is getting old. She needs support in her life now, and I can provide it. So, I will be moving from Grants, NM next month and returning to my hometown in the middle of thousands of acres of corn and soybean fields. Goodbye, Grants, and please forgive me for such a brief encounter.