Growing up, you think nothing of time. Where it’s gone, when
it’s coming or that exact moment: it doesn’t even cross your mind.
When you get older, it starts to take shape in the form of
yesterday, today and tomorrow. Deadlines, alarm clocks and scheduling are ways
we manage the time we have.
When you get to a certain age it takes the form of baby,
present age and old age.
Today I am dealing with old age.
Not MY old age. Heck, I’m 41 and I still feel 20 and, in
some cases, am still mistaken for it. Must be in the genes. My mother who will
be 73 this year is Italian and has virtually no wrinkles. That’s a part of her
I take after: good skin that ages and tans well. I guess you can say the
height, too, as I am only 4’11”. My grandmothers would say I get that from
them, too. She’s also pretty crafty and is good with a needle and thread. Me
too. Just thinking about these things makes me realize all the sorts of things
we do alike.
What I take after my dad in is my love of numbers, music and
the ability to make things. I remember having math contests with him trying to
solve math problems in our heads and see who got the right answer first. We
still do that. Dad could build anything. I’m pretty good with a hammer and
nail. I aced woodshop in school. Working with my hands has always been fun for
me. Music, well, he excelled at that, too. He once took my face in his hands and said I
had something he didn’t have and that was ‘IT”. You know, the “IT” that it
takes to make it one day. I’ll never forget that day. One of the three days in
my life I’ve seen my father cry.
What I don’t take after from my parents is a habit they
have. They smoke. At least my mom still does. My dad quit about a month ago.
He’ll be 80 this year and he stopped a month ago.
My dad quit just before a hospital scare. He was having a
hard time breathing. He couldn’t catch his breath and had to visit the VA
hospital where he spent a week. He actually stopped smoking a few days before
that because he was having a hard time breathing then. Now he is home and using
oxygen every night. He has an oxygen monitor for his finger he uses everyday
just to check his level. It comforts him to see anything above 90.
I am watching my parents slowly deteriorate. They’re not that
old: almost 73 and 80. For residents of Maine, a person living into their 70s
and 80s is not an uncommon thing. They grew up here, worked the land and I
still see some in their 90s working out in their gardens, tilling up their
lands for the summer crops and hay season.
My parents, however, were born in Connecticut in the city
and moved here 33 years ago. It’s a funny story, actually. My parents decided
to move to Maine because we had relatives here. The way they said they would
remember how to get to their new home everyday was to live off the same number
exit they lived off of on I-95 in Connecticut and that was Exit 35. So there we
lived. They were always hard workers. My dad worked for McLean Trucking and my
mom was a housekeeper. I can still fold a fitted sheet like she taught me. When they finished working for the week, the
weekends were always filled with projects. Mom always said “You’re father
doesn’t know how to slow down.”
We enjoyed life. I grew up and graduated from Lawrence High
School with honors. I have had very few different jobs but they have all lasted
a long time. I am now a medical biller for the Maine Veterans' Homes in Augusta.
I love what I do. See where that love of numbers comes in?
My father’s recent hospital stay scared us. I know parents
won’t be around forever but now time has become sacred. Each and every phone
call, house visit, request they make is met with an “I’ll be right over” or an
“I’ll get that done and stop by tomorrow with it,” and an “I love you.”
Time.
The hourglass is running out.
I did a little research and asked some doctors I knew about
end stage emphysema and COPD. It’s funny. I never really knew how to spell
emphysema until recently. They said that since my dad stopped smoking just
recently, he could have up to 4 years of life remaining. Had he not stopped, it
was more likely 2.
2 years.
2 years of having a parent still with you.
Now, it could be more or less than 2 years. You never know
what the body will do or when the good Lord will call to take a person home. Heck,
he could live until he’s 100. He's pretty feisty that way and I wouldn't put it past him.
You just never know.
But 2 years?
What do you do?
Well, if you’re like me, you jump each time the telephone
rings and you see it’s from your parents. You wonder if they’re calling to say
hello or need anything or you wonder if they are in trouble and need help. You
also jump each time you see the phone ring from your siblings during the day.
My siblings don’t call me so to see the phone light up with their numbers jumps
me. You never know if they are contacting you for a chat or a problem with your
parent’s health.
If you’re like me, you pray a little more. And the things
you pray about are different. I usually pray for my family, help with troubles
and ask for forgiveness if I think I haven’t done all that I could that day. Now,
even though I pray for family, I have been praying and asking God specifically
to, if He has to take either of them, to make it gentle. To have them not
suffer too much. Or at all.
If you’re like me, you prepare. Preparing is a weird thing
to do. How do you prepare for something like death? They’ve prepared
everything. My parents have all of their
affairs in order from the caskets, headstones, funeral home and will. They have
put my brother as the executor. He’s a good man and always does for our
parents. He’s the only son and the best son and brother all of us could ask
for. There’s nothing really for me to do.
But prepare.
I know you can never prepare yourself for the death of a
loved one but I have been able to be at peace with it. I know and believe that
the last breath they breathe here on Earth will be the first breath they take
in Heaven. Some don’t believe in that and that’s their choice. It gives me
comfort though.
I guess the preparing I have to do is go on living. Each and
everyday. Do I dread the day it happens? Oh, yes. Am I prepared for it? Kind
of. Am I ready? Not really. Will I ever be?
No.
No.
And that’s okay.
Talking with my husband yesterday, I told him my concerns. I
cried. There was really nothing for him to say. But his being there and letting
me tell him I was worried and scared was the best thing he could do. You need
that person to talk to, to listen to you. And in the moments he’s not around,
God is always there. I know He hears me, too.
So now we wait.
And prepare.
And continue our lives.
And use our time a little more wisely.
