I had been asking my then-still-youthful-and-able mom to come live with me in Lebanon for years.
I had a clear plan; she would live at my house and be independent! We would have morning chats on the balcony, go for mid-week brunches and take long Sunday trips. But she would also make plans with her numerous friends and cousins already living here. She would visit with them, and they would go to lunch together or take day trips around Lebanon. She would cook for us her delicious dishes, but she would also enjoy quiet moments reading, taking naps, or just sitting in the garden sipping on a hot chocolate and enjoying a peaceful quiet life in the sunshine. And, of course, while she did all that, we, her children, would go about with our lives, business as usual.
That dream never materialized. At first, we overlooked the idea because we were constantly worried that there wouldn’t be any good medical follow-up here with two open heart surgeries and a fitted pacemaker behind her. We reconciled this concern by suggesting she comes over for a few months during spring and summer and then head back to the US for her yearly checkups. Then, whenever we set a date to book her a flight, something would happen, and her travel plans would be put on hold. She got temporal arteritis and was at risk of going blind. As soon as she recovered from that, she caught pneumonia and had to undergo high-risk surgery. A few weeks later, on her birthday, when she was officially declared cured, she fell down a flight of 15 stairs breaking seven ribs, dislocating a shoulder, and fracturing a clavicle.
It was agreed that I would fly to the US to help my sister look after her until she healed. Then she would return to Lebanon, where she would continue recovering. I would dedicate a few months to her recovery until she got her energy and health back and was well enough to resume her life. And with my eldest sister living not too far away, we would share the load.
Mom did make the haul back here. But I was in for an unpleasant revelation.
She did get better. She soon recovered from her broken ribs and dislocated shoulders with good weather, home care, and regular physiotherapy. Relatively to her age, and despite all the terrible medical afflictions she had suffered the year and a half before, she was finally better. Now she could do all the wonderful things I had imagined she would do. And my sisters and I could resume our lives as before and not worry about her anymore.
And just then, she suffered a brain bleed. Suddenly she wasn’t making sense anymore and became blank. She had to be hospitalized. We were back to square one. We thought we had lost her for eight long days, and for a few tense weeks after, it was a game of nerve-wracking touch and go.
Thankfully, like the other major illnesses she recovered from, she miraculously managed to escape any significant long-term consequences from this too.
It goes without saying how immensely grateful we were that she did. But that’s when I slowly became aware of a life fact; a real-life epiphany.
It’s cards night, but you can’t go because she still can’t be left alone at night. Lunch with friends, but you can’t join them because what if she trips on the stairs on her way to the kitchen for a bite? You wake up in the middle of the night because you’re worried she missed a step on her way to the toilet.
You know. You go about as if your parents would be forever young. As if they would always be the ones who would look after you and pamper you, make you something delicious to eat, and take over your little chores at home so you could go out into the world and take care of the big chores.
Then suddenly, it dawns on you that your mom is not as youthful or able anymore. You discover that your dad, who already has an unnoticeable hearing issue, now suffers from a very noticeable age-generated macular degeneration! WHAT? Thankfully, this does not cause total blindness, but it certainly makes his everyday activities difficult. You discover how slowly you must walk alongside them to ensure they keep up with you. And their long pensive silences reveal how this ominous perception of aging had been creeping upon us all in our oblivious state of denial.
A revelation that as people get older, they never go back to who they were the year before, the month before, the week before, and not even the day before.
Then comes the realization that this could be you in a few years. Me! One day, I will become my mom, and my children will become me. Such roles are handed down just like any family heirloom. So, along with that beautiful ring my mom wore all those years, I will pass my role as a daughter down to my children. And I worry some more. I worry about inconveniencing them, interrupting their lives with my inevitable dis-ability to take care of myself. And I never want them to have to deal with all that.
Mercifully, the dust eventually settles, and you work out a doable routine with this new normal. You figure out the knots and bolts of looking after an elderly parent and realize the blessing it is; those fleeting moments of calm and a subtle joyful appreciation of knowing that everything will be alright. You realize that just as your life was once upheaved with the arrival of your children, your life will again alter with the aging of a parent. It is indeed a journey!
Happy endings don’t always come the way you expect them or want them to be. Frequent doctor visits and quick runs to the pharmacy put aside, my parents and I get our chats on a sunny balcony, and Mom enjoys her quiet warm hot chocolate. Although she doesn’t cook lunch, she does overlook it. Dad plays cards with us on cards night now. Cozy weekend family lunches have replaced mid-week brunches with friends and cousins, and Sunday day trips aren’t day-long anymore.
Between their indebted gazes and apologetic glances, your heart oscillates between an overwhelming cleansing of the soul and crushing heartache. It may not be an easy feat reversing roles with our parents, but I keep reminding myself that they are having a bad day, and it is up to us to make it all better.
