Last night we took my mother out for dinner to celebrate her 81st birthday. My parents still live in the house in which I grew up, in a suburb south of San Francisco. I’m lucky enough to have easy access to them, living within an hour’s drive on the northern side of the city by the bay.
My father, 83, was a career longshoreman whose work involved tough manual labor for most of his career. He now suffers from a bad back and walks with a cane to support his stooped over posture.
Signs My Parents are Aging
I first noticed my dad’s cane in the trunk of their main commuting car about three years ago. He rarely used it, yet I’ve seen his reliance on it grow in the last couple of years. Yesterday when we arrived at my parents’ home, I discovered a second cane for the first time in their bedroom.
Over the past couple of years my mom has become the primary driver because my dad’s eyesight isn’t great. He’ll drive himself to his weekly Tuesday lunch with his buddies, but that’s about it. Whenever we all go out now, we drop my dad near the front door of the restaurant so that he doesn’t have far to walk.
In comparison, my mom is in pretty good shape. She gets around rather well, yet lately I’ve been seeing different signs of her aging. The once almost immaculate house is no longer immaculate. Her outdoor orchid plants, until recently her passion, now have weeds in between the potted bulbs.
Gratitude for Time with My Aging Parents
Last night after we finished a wonderful dinner at their favorite Basque restaurant, I looked at my parents across the table and felt an emotional wave of gratitude for all the memories I’ve been able to share with them as an adult.
I spent a good chunk of my mid-20s to mid-30s living in New England for my work. My parents were in their 50s then. Although my dad, who immigrated to the U.S. from the island of Malta at age 16 had seen many parts of the world before arriving in San Francisco, he’d not traveled to the northeastern part of our country. My mom who was a Brooklyn born full Croatian had never traveled the northeast states either. So my home in New Hampshire made for the perfect launching pad for memories.
Reminiscence of My Time Together with My Aging Parents
During one of their early visits to see me in New Hampshire, my parents had expected to be driving with my husband and I to Montreal, yet our SUV that was supposed to get us there was sitting at the local garage. Somehow we gained access to the SUV the night they arrived and my dad fixed whatever was wrong so that it became our vehicle to Montreal the next day. There was another time when my mom and I laughed our pants off when we couldn’t find our way off the toll road that kept bringing us back to Newport, Rhode Island. I loved that I introduced my California parents to Maine steamers and lobster and the beauty of Vermont. Those were the days.
I moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1996, and a year later bought a waterfront condominium in Marin County, which was a spot that fostered many other great memories with my parents. My father, a bird lover and a fisherman, enjoyed the unique outdoors where I lived. My mom was a presence I could rely upon, whether that be in-patient surgery or holding my hand as I said good-bye to my treasured kitty friend.
They haven’t spent much time at my place over the past few years. The traffic to get through San Francisco is too much for them and they’ve become much more comfortable sleeping in their own bed.
I miss the old times. I wish I had been more appreciative of those days as they were happening. I knew we were enjoying time together, but I didn’t have the awareness that those days would someday be limited.
I know that now. And better late than never for it gives me an understanding of how I want to charter the remaining times we have together.
Might you somehow relate?
