Alas, The Fleeting Years Slip Away

I visited my parents today.  Not an unusual thing to do on Father's day, I know, but it is something that for me, requires a lot mental shoring up before I hop to the car and cram my seven year old in the back seat for the hour-long ride. I always know how these visits are going to go before I even get there, and they never fail to meet my expectations, except of course for the rare occasions when someone else is also visiting when I arrive...then the visits exceed my expectations.

What do I expect? You must be wondering.  And I understand your curiosity, after all, I am just going to hang with my folks for a few minutes on a Sunday afternoon.  How challenging can that be?  Well let me tell you, it's plenty challenging.

See, my folks are 80 years old.  Not the oldest people I've ever hung out with, but old enough so that communicating with them is sometimes a nightmare.  They are both quite hard of hearing.  My father is always glued to the television, some fishing show or sports game blaring in the background.  My mother has taken to mumbling in her old age, so even though she speaks loudly, you often can't understand a darned thing she's saying.  Years ago my folks decided that they no longer needed to be courteous to one another and started both speaking at the same time to the same person about two different things.  I thought back then that I felt crazy by the time I left there, from listening to two separate conversations at once from my parents.  I started to cut my visits a little shorter unless I was able to corner my dad outside and then visit with my mom inside.  It seemed the only way to retain my sanity was to divide and conquer.

Now though, with the TV playing loudly in the background, the air conditioner in the window humming loudly, my dad telling me a story I've already heard a million times and my mother vocalizing in an unrecognizable language I tend to feel as if my head is about to explode.  Now you understand my afternoon. Except for it was even worse than that.

My oldest sister came by while I was there.  She sat on the left side of the room. My mother was on the far right and my dad was beside me, sitting across from my mom, flipping through one loud channel after another with the "Button".  That's what he calls the remote. My sister and mother had a long disjointed conversation about their health...actually they both had separate conversations with me about their individual health.  Seems my sister has recently found out she 's diabetic.  My other is diabetic too and has been for about half her life.  She now has diabetic neuropathy, which she refers to as "diabetic worms."

"Diabetic worms?" I asked, raising my voice to a decibel to which it hasn't been since...well, maybe ever.

"Yeah," she answered. "I got them worms in my feet." she answered, raising one leg to rub the bottom of her foot.

"It's just something she made up," my dad interjected without looking away from the TV.

Turns out that yesterday afternoon, my mother became so convinced that there were worms in her feet that she called EMS.  She told them she was positive it was worms because they kept knocking the blanket off her feet when she fell asleep.

"They told me I wasn't doin' no good." She said.

"Yeah," I hollered back to her as my sister went on chattering loudly in my other ear about drinking more water and avoiding bread. "Sounds like your neuropathy is really giving you a lot of trouble."

"It is." She conceded. And then the whole conversation with both her and my sister simultaneously screaming in both my ears started repeating itself again.

Charlie sat on the couch beside me looking bewildered.  He has never handled noisy situations well, but this was more that noise, it was chaos.  Even I was beginning to feel as though I were on the edge of a breakdown.

I tried to engage my dad in conversation, but he couldn't hear me above the hum of the AC and the loud murmuring of my mother and sister.  Charlie eventually got up and went over to stand by his papa, talking to him about our vacation last year and how his big sisters were doing.

That led to the whole conversation where my mother tried to make me feel responsible for the choices of my two adult daughters.  My mother doesn't approve of one daughter's much older boyfriend, and she is disdainful of the other daughter's relationship as well.  She knows my daughter isn't married, and lectured me for at least half an hour about girls who end up ruining their lives by getting pregnant before they're wed.  I deflected and changed the subject as quickly as I could.

Then the topic somehow changed to all the people they know from church who have committed adultery, sexual assault or some other sin.  I really don't want to know anymore about that than I already do.  So at that point, I found my way to exit, hugged them both and wished my dad a happy father's day before I slipped out the door.

My dad has celebrated almost 60 Father's Days.  Is it any wonder that he doesn't really place much meaning on it anymore?  Honestly, I think he would have been content to have sat in his chair with some peace and quiet all afternoon, rather than have to keep turning up the volume to drown out all the talkative women around him.  He's gotten all the new ties a man could ever want: He's gotten homemade paper cards with our hand prints on them, new cologne, flannel shirts and fishing equipment, you name it.  There's nothing he really expects or wants from any of us, other than a quick hug and for us to tell him we love him and to be left the heck alone to watch his shows in silence.  After 60 years of being a father, I guess even Father's Day seems to become a bit of a drudgery.

I drove home with my head still spinning a little. It isn't until after I leave that I sometimes piece together all that was said to me in the flurry of words and background noise at their house.  Today all I could really come up with was the fact that my parents are aging more rapidly than ever before.  My dad's memory isn't what it used to be. My mother has less couth than ever.  Even my eldest sister seems to be drifting into the all consuming swell of age.

And that was the last thought I could muster up about this day.  It's that time really does fly. Our kids grow up and grow distant and we all have to accept the inevitable passing of youth.  So before our hearing goes, before we find ourselves with nothing more to talk about than the increasing failures of our bodies, before we need a blanket over our knees in the summertime and while we can still remember what happened yesterday, we need to put all we can into making the most of every facet of life.

Love the people in your world. Give of yourself--I don't mean your financial resources either.  Money is something that gets used up and forgotten.  Give to those you love from your heart, and try not to expect anything in return.  Laugh a little every day.  Pray for the strength to remain grateful in the face of every circumstance. Treasure every hug, every smile, every freckle on the nose of that kid you tuck in every night, because one of these days, that kid is going to find himself fidgeting in a chair as he listens to you talk about your failing health and he will need some positive thoughts of you he can recall.

Like the time we drove to Florida and my dad was so tired that he lay on the hotel bed one morning singing silly songs from Bugs Bunny cartoons, tickling everyone who dared pass within arm's reach.  Or the time I watched Psycho with my mom and the phone rang just before the shower scene, making us both jump our of our skin and scream in terror. I need to remember them as the people they were before they became old people. It makes me appreciate them more, and it reminds me that youth doesn't last forever.

Happy Father's Day, y'all.  If that kind of thing is important to you.

If not, I wish you all the peace and quiet your heart can hope for, and plenty of fresh batteries for the "button."

Eheu fugaces labuntur anni.