Time...and the Little We Have Left

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.

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.