Reflecting on aged parents

When I was a toddler, my parents moved from their tiny starter home near the campus of Notre Dame to the four-bedroom home on a cul-de-sac in the suburbs of Granger which would turn out to be their forever home. It's where my three sisters and I lived our childhoods, teen years and even some "after college" years too on different occasions. Countless memories here span the decades and phases of our lives. When they moved in, they would've been in their early 30s with four girls under age 10. I am sure they were just as busy with and consumed with life with children all those years ago as my sisters and I are now in the midst of ourselves. The constant memory my sisters and I have of this home is of our parents taking care of us, providing for us—existing only in service to their four daughters well through all four weddings and even through the marriages. My father, once strong and capable of anything it would seem, built things, fixed things, mowed and raked the yard, built and grew to magnificent heights, his garden each season and maintained every inch of this home. The hours my dad spent hunched over his yard picking the weeds from his grass the past four decades is definitely commendable. My mother, once active and eager for projects and helping and always ready to start an activity, maintained a full-time job while also cooking and baking, sewing, cleaning, and planning day-to-day life for us under this roof.

Now 45 years have passed and my parents— my mom on the verge of 80 and my dad who just turned 82 last month—have to leave this forever home. Bits and pieces and contents of this home will be moved out and into a senior living home this weekend. The time has come that they are no longer safe alone with my mom's dementia and my dad's aged memory and decreased abilities. The strain of daily back and forth care given by my eldest sister who is the only one in town has also become too much for her as she balances her own household and kids. So this decision was made. It's one that every adult child our age will eventually face. It's one my own children will someday make for me too, in 30 years, I assume, unless I can score a spot in my youngest daughter's basement (I hope she keeps her word on that). 

My sisters and I all know this needs to happen. They can't drive. They have trouble keeping up with their medication. They don't remember things. They have been scammed by phone predators. They shouldn't be alone. But it's hard to believe that the two strong, capable, confident people who once did everything for us here to provide and protect us—are the same two people who need to be protected and provided for now. I hate that things will be different now. Visiting them in a strange place. With strange people. People who don't know how good my dad was at grilling burgers in our backyard or at raking and bagging leaves—it was a meticulous science for him every fall. Gardening was an art form and was his most valuable talent, a love passed down to him by his own father. Enviable zucchinis, tomatoes, green peppers, beans and in early years corn as tall as the house were all things my dad grew from a 12x12 plot of dirt behind our house. My dad made us all movie fans here at this home. He amassed a family VHS movie collection complete with a typed library catalog of over 200 movies and sporting events spanning many decades. Our childhood could not have been complete without access to countless classic 80s/90s movies dubbed and edited off the tv available for us to pop in any time we ever wanted. 

My mom used to sit on a stool in our kitchen for days, canning tomatoes that she would later use to cook homemade spaghetti sauce. She spent hours at her sewing machine lovingly crafting our childhood Halloween costumes. She logged endless hours creating family calendars with everyone's names and birthdates and marriage dates. She was Shutterfly before there was Shutterfly. So many afghans knitted and quilts sewn here as teacher gifts. So many birthdays and surprises. So many messes cleaned. Toilets unclogged (four teenage girls on a simultaneous period for several years no doubt has my dad on the short list to sainthood). So many holidays and milestones. Christmases made special only because our parents gave everything they had for our happiness for all those years.

The house I knew growing up will likely always be there at the end of the cul-de-sac in my Granger neighborhood. But the thought of the two people who made it a home for us not being there is what terrifies me and breaks my heart right now.

Time goes by too quickly. The consequences of time and aging will find us all eventually. Realizing that it comes too soon is becoming the hardest part of being an adult.