Being an Adult...ugh!

My father is staying at my sister's house this week. He stayed at my house the last time that he was ill. He is no longer going to be able to live on the farm. We haven't said this out loud yet to him. We, my siblings and I, have talked about it. I even think that Dad realizes it now. The dynamics of an elderly parent is quite interesting. You see things in yourself and your siblings that other circumstances haven't shined light on before. My sister's blustery disapproval of opinions that she doesn't agree with are made so much like my father's and I had never noticed it before. She continues to say things like "he just needs to start taking responsibility for ... (fill in the blank)", or "he just needs to change ... (fill in the blank)". I have to laugh (not rudely, but...) My father is 82 years old. I don't think he's going to change. To tell the truth I don't think that he could at this point. My mother died when she was still relatively young, 69. She needed care but that was because she was sick not because she was old. My grandmother is the only relative that we have really seen get old and she lived with my Aunt and Uncle. I was the only child in my family that visited her very often. I saw her get old. My Aunt and I dealt with her aging as best we could. She lived to be 88, and even after broken hips and other ailments she did pretty well, but she spent the last 2 or 3 years going down hill. There is a point when we realized that she is just no longer in charge of herself. We would listen, we wouldn't argue with her (except for occasionally when we were just exhausted) and my Aunt, my Uncle and I, would decide between ourselves how we would handle whatever came up in her behalf. It isn't pleasant to see an authority figure in your life become a dependent, but that is what it is. Plain and simple. Just move forward from that place and know that most of America will be moving that way with you.

That is all from Powell Cottage today,