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CHAPTER 1
Speaking Loudly Without Saying A Word
She had a raspy voice, almost as if she had something in her throat but it was perfectly all right for it to be there. A little "off-putting" to the listener, but of no consequence to the speaker.
Noticing the obvious signs of Parkinson's disease, the shaking, her nervous look, her head seeming to rest precariously on her stooped shoulders, I asked, "Can you walk ok?" Slowly her head turned, just enough to get the questioner in her peripheral view and with eyes twinkling, the "thing" in her throat allowed her to say, " Well, I'm not as frisky as I used to be." The seam of a mouth turned up at each corner as if to cradle those words before they escaped. However, the corners quickly straightened out and she was quiet again. She retreated back into her world, obviously a place where she enjoyed being, a place seemingly much more comfortable than the retirement community conference room where she currently sat.
Her audience, consisting of a marketing counselor for the retirement community and a worried, frustrated, only child vacillating between anger and frustration, couldn't help but laugh out loud. Her comments were so contradictory for a person who couldn't communicate verbally very well, whose hairpiece was askew, whose clothes were quality but ill fitting and who didn't seem to really care where she was or who was with her.
Or did she?
Maybe she was actually the one in control with her audience observing someone who knew exactly what she wanted and did not want. The three of them, mother, daughter and counselor were sitting in the conference room of the retirement community. You know, the place to "retire," where you can "finally do what you always wanted to do." But it was definitely not what she wanted, and she was making it crystal clear to her daughter without speaking a single word.
Do we ask our parents to do what is best for them ... or best for ourselves?
CHAPTER 2
Who Is Making This Decision, Anyway?
A friend is always the best crutch when you don't really need one. She came with a friend. A comfortable crutch of a friend. She didn't take up much room in the chair. A pixie haircut fell into place on her head. She announced herself to be "a widow of one year, five months TODAY." She is still grieving, worried, and angry with her four sons. When she entered the room, she wore a blue windbreaker zipped as far up as it could go. It was obviously keeping out more than just the cold February wind and rain. You could tell her smile, once very warm and real, was now about to shatter like a fragile piece of porcelain. It stayed on her face through sheer will power and she looked tired and strained because of it. Explaining why her sons wanted her "to find a home, which is so silly because I'm only sixty-eight," she said she would not move out of town to be closer to them because "If they can't take five minutes to call me once or twice a week, how in the world would they treat me if I lived in town nearer to them? Besides," she sniffed, "I don't want to be dependent on them for anything, much less a phone call."
The anger was taking form.
She's diabetic and has been for over fifty years. Self medicating. No problem. That is, as long as "a spell" doesn't come up without warning. Afraid of not being found until the next day or whenever someone happens to check up on her ("God knows my sons won't!"), she seeks freedom. Freedom from worry and freedom from dependence on neighbors. Strangely enough, I sense she is quite at home with her fifty-year companion that this disease has become. They have learned to live together in understanding if not harmony, with one still overpowering the other. And the other acquiesces, as she must. She has no control.
She cannot control her husband's death. She cannot control her sons' apparent lack of interest. She cannot control the disease. She cannot control their constant nagging that she find "a retirement home."
However, she can control where she lives. Control has to take form somehow and getting the children off her back is as easy as talking to someone in the retirement community who will see she is too young, too healthy, too independent to live there. Surely, they will agree with her.
But she is also scared, insulin dependent, and tired of taking care of the house. Now what?
Call your parents today. Even if you don't get along. Call them. Even for five minutes. Check on them. One day someone is going to have to check on you.
CHAPTER 3
Invisibility On The Phone
On the phone he sounded nice. Tired, but nice. His vocabulary skipped along hand in hand with intelligent words, big words, long words but still easy on the listener's ear. He was happy that I called. Later in the conversation I found out why.
I never had the opportunity to speak with his wife on the phone. We all met late that afternoon. Yes, he agreed, they would like to come see the apartment. An apartment in the floor plan they wanted had finally become available. One problem: It is in Assisted Living. They wanted Independent Living.
When I met them later that day, I could see as well as hear his fatigue. A little bent over, he walked with a cane and a limp. All these months that we had been talking on the phone all he ever talked about were her needs, never his own. I never had a clue he had a single one.
His left leg shuffled itself along as if it were a reluctant passenger rather than an integral part of the walking process. His eyes were slightly closed, very red and set deep in their sockets. The tearing that I attributed to the cold weather was in fact, part of his weariness. Why was this obviously intelligent, charming man so tired? Oh! It's because he's in love!
They have been married for sixty years. She has had Parkinson's disease for fifteen years. Fifteen years! That means she succumbed to its clutches when she was in her late sixties. Much too young! Incontinent, unable to control her hand to drink an offered cup of coffee, she needs constant attention. Daily linen care. Daily meals. Daily checking. At home she still is trying to cook all their meals with her grandmother's cast iron skillet and manipulate it around her constant companion, her walker.
Her body may need constant attention but not her brain. Surprisingly, this World War II Wac can still offer a grip to rival many men her age. She has a quick wit and a take on her surroundings with the accuracy of a periscope doing a 360.
But it becomes painfully obvious why her devoted puppy of a husband is so bone weary. He confesses, "I have to go behind her on everything. And I'm so tired of having to do all the laundry. But the main thing is that I'm scared: scared she is going to burn down the house when she goes into the kitchen."
Tearing, red-ringed eyes look up to me. He puts his caneless hand over mine and asks, "Can you please help us?" Sometimes the time to make a decision about moving to an alternative living community is so obvious, you can't see it for all the daily living.
CHAPTER 4
Hidden Agendas
He is the son-in-law. Short, both in stature and sentence structure. He is late to the meeting, rubbing his hands with their chewed fingernails against his brown, too-tight khaki pants. His tie chokes his red, puffy neck. He has sweated through his collar and it's seeping into his tie. He looks down as he shakes hands with the counselor. Although he has never visited the retirement community before, he looks familiar to the retirement counselor, he admits the counselor looks familiar as well but won't meet anyone's eye. What is going on here?
His wife has been to the retirement community before. So has his father-in-law and he didn't like it. But it is time. Time for "Dad to make the move." Dad doesn't want it. The daughter does. So does her husband. Everyone sits silently. Eyes are downcast. Each person clasps their own hands, fingers opening and closing. Silent movements. The silence is deafening. A decision about a person's life is about to be made. Three people but only one decision. Who wins?
Is everyone aware of the agenda?
CHAPTER 5
Family Fires
The son, Sam, comes first, bringing a female friend. But he doesn't really need any help with this decision. She is there for what? Assurance, I think. Assurance that he is making the right move after all. "I'm hoping two heads are better than one," he offers with a smile. Shortly the other son, the quiet one, joins him.
He begins to describe his mother, his father and brother. After meeting with his family I appreciate that he is more on target than any adult child I have met under these trying circumstances. He slowly moves his head from side to side as he begins to try to paint a picture of his mom. No words escape a mouth that is making futile attempts to speak. Still the slow, deliberate movement of his head from side to side. At first he tries a few words ... "She is stubborn. No, not stubborn; more controlling. No, more like mean as a snake." The last sentence proves to be the most accurate.
Dad, described as frail, caters to Mom. When I meet them I realize he is not just catering to her. He is keeping the peace. He is putting as much water on the family fire as he can while trying to not have another stroke.
Mom must weigh close to 225 lbs. Dad weighs in somewhere around 150. There is no question who wears the pants. She may be in a motorized "scooter," but she definitely makes everyone else march to the beat of her drum. Except Sam. He says he is too much like her. Someone needs to be, I guess.
They have a ten-pound dog called "Son." Dad says, "That dog loves me more than my own sons do." I can see the hurt in the eyes of his boys. Finally, they can take it no longer. One of them blurts out.
"And just how many times has that dog taken you to the hospital?
Or picked you up when you fell at home?
Or put out the fire you started in the kitchen?
Or took your prescriptions to the pharmacy?" Family members fall silent. Eyes brim with tears. Anger has arrived.
Mom silently and deliberately crosses her arms across her massive chest, one beefy arm very slowly folding itself over the other one. This gesture speaks volumes. Then she turns her head and her steely gaze toward her husband while Dad reaches over to pat her arm. Stubborn and controlling, indeed. The family fire is about to spontaneously combust.
The parents are so dependent on neighbors, friends, children, and the rescue squad. But they call themselves independent. The only real friend they have, they say, is their dog. The dog has become a tremendous obstacle in their lives but it is the only warmth they choose to cling to.
The retirement community their son selected does not accept pets. They won't move without the pet. One by one family members cross their arms or glare or plead, depending on who wants what. A ten-pound dog will determine their lifestyle, their future health and ultimately, their death.
What are the real reasons you can't talk to your children?
CHAPTER 6
Speaking In Riddles
She is polite. She is well dressed, very well dressed and petite. She possesses and uses an excellent vocabulary. She is eighty years old, about a size six. She just came off the golf course and thought she would look into the concept of retirement living. She has a friend who lives in this community. She wants to see what that style of apartment looks like.
"I love my condo, but it's two stories and I'm getting concerned about the stairs."
Politely, the marketing counselor asks what Mrs. Size Six is seeking in a retirement community. Her response is "You tell me." Confused, I turn to the daughter for clarity. Mother answers once again: "We're just looking".
It is so difficult to help someone when they want you to guess what they need.
CHAPTER 7
Free At Last; Thank God Almighty
She is so beautiful. Her hair is obviously not the color given at birth but very stylish. I would have guessed she was about sixty years old but when her son introduced himself as her son, I had to ask, twice, "Your mother? Your mother?"
He had to be in his middle fifties and shared that he was retired. So I looked back at her to see what I'd missed. Long polished nails, slim fingers that displayed a huge diamond on her left hand, and beautiful teeth ("All my own," she offered). She had a slim, almost athletic build, exquisite valuable jewelry around her neck and wrist and stylish clothes. No way could this gal be in her mid eighties.
Her husband had died only four months ago. She could talk about it much too easily. What was wrong here? She was getting ready to go to Hawaii next month with a girlfriend and excitedly announced to the room at large, "I can't wait to see what kind of men I meet!" She talked about what a wonderful lover her husband had been, how he had showered her with hugs and kisses. I watched her adult son squirm in his chair as she continued with a conversation much too intimate for her audience.
Her husband recently died of cancer after years of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. She was now free. She would never, ever say those words out loud. But she was free.
Being a caregiver is a taxing, very much underappreciated job.
CHAPTER 8
What's Wrong With This Picture?
Have you ever seen a situation that simply didn't look quite right? You can't put your finger on what doesn't fit. It's as if you have your undershirt on backwards. It's not really noticeable right away, it just feels funny until you realize the problem.
Well, something was "wrong with this picture." A white haired giant was being pushed into the office in a wheel chair. It looked wrong. It felt wrong. So, what was it? Like the backwards undershirt finally corrected, I realized it seemed as if he should have been doing the pushing, not the riding.
With his white hair and huge hands, he was strong and masculine looking. His hands looked frightening and gentle at the same time. They were the kind of hands you want to have on your side in a fight, not against you. He had a pair of the largest feet I had ever seen. Especially for a man not walking! He wore tennis shoes-very new, very white, with new laces. The laces still had the plastic tips on them. Had they ever touched the ground? If not, why not? What was this giant doing in a retirement community, let alone in a wheelchair?
A much smaller and obviously concerned man was pushing the wheelchair. "I got ya, Jack, ole buddy."
Willy, his best friend, was the pusher; Jack was the reluctant passenger.
Jack acknowledged the help but seemed preoccupied, but with what? Not a smile for the friend. Not a nod of acknowledgement. Just a very strong handshake from those massive hands.
This man was on a mission.
Once he began to talk, he started with rapid-fire questions. I had seen this before. And I felt my own fear creeping into the room. I experienced this previously and I knew what was coming.
He did not mince words. He posed questions that most people ask in the second half of the meeting, not right away. His first staccato question was regarding quick, immediate availability of an apartment. He had no regard whatsoever about dining options or daily activities or fun trips. And he dismissed any concern about finances with a wave of the hand. "That doesn't bother me right now," Jack said.
I knew the signs. He seemed robust to us who didn't know him before his cancer.
"You wouldn't guess how much he has shrunk in the last few months," whispered Willy, the pusher, behind his hand. His eyes glistened over.
They were in the Army together. "When it was the Army Air Corps" as if that were when men were really men. "We wore the same uniform, didn't we, ole Buddy?" "Yeah, Willy. We sure did." That was the longest sentence Jack had spoken so far.
Cancer will do that to you. It shortens your words and makes you get right to the point.
His eighty-two-year-old spine had been taken prisoner by disks that had begun to dissolve. The pain was now the encroaching leader of this new battle. This military trained giant was no longer standing straight and tall in his uniform, but continued his fight from a wheel chair when not leaning on Willy, his faithful Army buddy.
They left together. The small, healthy one smiling, so very glad to help. And the giant resigned to his fate.
Sometimes we wonder why a senior seems grumpy or negative. Do we know the whole story?
CHAPTER 9
Marching Men, Old Soldiers
The daughter says this is her parents' decision. Yet, her parents wouldn't think of coming in the door without the daughter. "We don't make a move without her input." So, who is really the decision-maker here?
Mom has an obvious wig perched on her head. She is in a wheelchair and quite obviously experiencing pain from osteo-arthritis and osteoporosis. But what a spirit she possesses! In the middle of a sentence she suddenly pops out of her wheelchair and pronounces that it is "time for a pill" (an obvious pain pill). The family jumps to attention.
Dad calls her "sweetheart" all the time. Even when she is giving him driving lessons on navigating the wheelchair, he is patient and kind. She chuckles and says she will take away his driving license if he doesn't do better. All smile. But I feel that he would gladly give this chore away. He is tired and it shows.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Unwrapping The Sandwich Generation"
by .
Copyright © 2005 Susan Cunningham.
Excerpted by permission of Morgan James Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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