Grow old with me! The best is yet to be.
–Robert Browning
If you’re wondering what to do with/about/for your aging parents as their health and abilities begin to fail, then in some important ways they’re already ahead of the game. They know they have you, even if you feel as if you aren’t doing anything for them. I’m thinking about a story from the Wilmington (North Carolina) Star News about an aging couple who apparently don’t have family members worrying about them. It isn’t a pretty picture, but the story of Vernon and Geneva Mathis is important.
Naturally you want to help your parents avoid the imponderable dilemmas that confront the Mathises, but it may not have occurred to you that your involvement—even at the “want to help” stage–is important in many, many ways.
If your parents have you, even if it’s only over the phone, then they are not alone. You and they can be a lot braver and a lot smarter together than either you or they could be alone. It’s also important for you to remember that your parents probably aren’t looking to you to solve their problems. They just want you to listen. They want to know that the challenges they face matter to someone.
If you are involved in their lives at this point, it can actually be a stroke of good luck. It gives you chance, if you haven’t already done it, to establish the adult-to-adult relationship with them that you will need as you take on more and more responsibility for their well-being.
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