Our Parents

Rob's mom passed away when Emma was 2 --in 2002. Rob's dad and my mom are the same age --82, while my dad is 81.

On Saturday morning, I got a message from my sister --my father had been admitted to the hospital because his pulse was down at 30, rather than the 60 it should be. They think he needs a pacemaker. It's not terribly invasive surgery --having googled it I now know that they do it under a local anesthesia and valium, rather than general anesthesia. Still, at 81 there's a significant risk to every surgery.

My dad is pretty laid-back. Unflappable, even. And quite amenable to doctors' suggestions. My mom, on the other hand, doesn't trust doctors or hospitals at all. They were going to do the surgery on Saturday, but then put it off until Monday. My mom is convinced this is because they are on Medicare, and the hospital would rather take care of the rich, private-insurance, patients first. She could be right --god knows that Medicare doesn't reimburse the way private insurance companies do. However, it's just as likely that they're waiting because he's stable and they really do want to run a few more tests.

The hard part, however, is the waiting. My mom is at home, alone for the most part, just waiting for my dad to come back home. I talked with her on the phone this morning about how much your family is part of the background of your life --you don't notice them all that much until they're gone, leaving an enormous hole. Normally, my mom heads up to bed first, and my dad turns the lights out and the heat down a while later, before he goes to bed. This morning, when my mom got up, she found that she'd left all the lights on. When my sister was over Saturday afternoon, going into the kitchen to make some lunch, she saw my dad's car in the driveway, and called out to my mom "Dad's home", without thinking.

It's hard to be so far away. I'm grateful that my sister and brother are in town and are doing so much. I don't worry too much about my dad --he lives in his own world, and while he'd miss my mom a lot if she went first, I don't think that much would change for him --he's a definite introvert, and he lives mostly in his head. However, my mom will be quite lost if my dad goes first --she's the extrovert, and her world is very much in the world. I worry about that.

Bad Body

So, I finally went to see my doctor last week about the incredible leg pain I'd been having for a year. Well, actually, I did go see her about this pain earlier, but that was before the ulcer developed from all the NSAIDs I was taking, to mask the pain. So I didn't realize quite how much pain I was in at that time. We tried some physical therapy, which was certainly helping my leg strength and balance, even if it didn't decrease the pain. Then came the ulcer, and my cold-turkey break with NSAIDs, and the incredible pain. Too much pain to keep up with the strengthening exercises.

So, she took some x-rays, and I have moderate arthritis in both hips. "I've never seen arthritis this advanced in someone your age", and "You're really too young for a hip replacement" are not the best things to hear. Yes, I am too young for a hip replacement!

So now I'm on Celebrex, and I feel much better. I feel well enough to start back on the strengthening exercises and add some walking. I really need to lose weight, and of course we all know how easy that is.

But hey, I do feel better :-)

One of the Joys of Getting Older

Sometimes I look around, especially when I'm working with a latte at Panera, and I see women who are about 10 years older than I am, either meeting up with other women, or just sitting and doing their own thing. Some of them have obviously never grown up --they're just high school girls in women's bodies. I would bet that they had jobs but not careers, and don't find much real pleasure in anything they do by themselves.

But there are others, again sometimes on their own, sometimes with a friend, who are obviously quite satisfied with their inner life. When these women are on their own, they often have a book, sometimes a highlighter and pad of paper as well. There is something about the way they appear, calm yet interested, complete within themselves somehow, and I envy it. I feel generally harried, physically uncomfortable, and tired. I know this has a lot to do with where I am in life --raising a school age child, who's emotional ups and downs are exhausting her mom, trying to make ends meet, and keep the house at some low level of clean. I alternate between being grateful I have a loving husband who doesn't like sports, and being frustrated with a husband who gets so overwhelmed with his own life that I often feel like a single parent.

I am hoping to age into the women I see with the books, calm and satisfied with the things I do in life, enjoying all the moments rather than rushing through them.

Emotionally Exhausted

I am emotionally exhausted. And the amazing thing is that I'm not actually having any problems --no, I'm exhausted by second-hand emotion. Emma has spent the last two weeks doing a lot more crying than she should be --before school, after school, and apparently sometimes even in school.

Part of me is worried that there's really something wrong --and part of me is just ready to slap her out of it. Because of my own anxiety, I worry that she is more likely to be susceptible to things like anxiety and depression. But I also wish she'd just stand up for herself a bit more --she says she's going nuts because of some of her classmates --kids she's been friendly with, but who are younger than her (first-years), and who lately have just been annoying her. I want her to tell them that she needs a bit of space, go sit with someone else, not let them control her life.

Raising an Only

Emma is an only child. Rob and I knew, right from the start, that we only wanted one child. We are "older" parents --we met when we were 34, married when we were 35, and Emma was born soon after I turned 38. However, I don't really think we were worried about age at that time --we just thought that one child was right for us. Rob is adopted, and has a sister, also adopted but from a different family. He and his sister never got along, and it only got worse as they got older. I, on the other hand, am not adopted :-) I have an older sister, a younger sister, and a younger brother. Although my younger sister and I were close for a while when we lived together during college, we're not really very much alike. I've never been close to my other siblings. So, having siblings didn't seem terribly important to us --we're closer to our friends than our siblings.

The other day, I overheard Emma and Rob as she was helping him with something in the office. I thought about how much attention she was getting from him --she was helping him with a task, but they were talking and laughing, and he was pretty focused on her. I don't really remember getting that kind of focused attention as a child. That's not to say that my parents weren't good parents --I think they were extremely good parents, and we have a wonderful relationship even now, when they are both in their eighties. But with four kids, none of them gets much focused attention. I remember arguing with my siblings about whose turn it was to go to the grocery store with my dad, because it was pretty much the only time we could be alone with a parent. And I treasure the memories of the times when I was the lucky one.

But I wonder sometimes what it would be like if each child could get the kind of focused attention that only children get. I'm not discounting the experiences of having siblings, but I think the focused attention of a parent can offer such a wealth of love and learning. I suppose there are parents, wealthier than mine, who had more than one child and created one-on-one experiences with those children. But my parents were poor, and always busy, which is probably more the norm. There was very little time to focus attention on the activities of each and every one of us. We were expected to do some things --like practice the piano and complete our homework, but I don't remember a lot of parental attendance at things like school activities. Personally, I can't even imagine trying to attend school activities for four kids!

Sometimes I just wonder about what I learned from the experience of having siblings, and wonder how it compares to what Emma learns form the experience of being an only child.