kiwords

Today we found out that my grandparents will be moving into the nursing home sometime in the next week. We’ve been waiting for room to open up for them for forever, and now, suddenly, it has.

I haven’t written about my grandparents in a while. This has been awkward at times, because lordy, I babble about everything here, don’t I? But I haven’t been able to say anything about them because…

Hmm…

Because I don’t know what to say.

On the one hand, the burden isn’t even mine to talk about. It’s Mom that has shouldered that load, so who am I to say, OH THIS IS SO HARD? She’s the one who spends eighty bazillion hours a day on the phone, trying to arrange caregivers around the clock. She’s the one who gets up at midnight to go over and give them medication, then does it again at 5:30 or some other ungodly hour of the morning (see? I don’t even know when, exactly). She’s the one keeping the plates spinning, so I don’t feel as though this is my story to tell.

Also…it’s more difficult, more complex and painful than it looks. These final years of Grandma and Grandpa’s lives have been punctuated by loss after loss. Their home, their mobility, their vision, their health, their friends, their church, everything has been slowly stripped away from them. Worst of all, during this, the hardest era they’ve ever faced, they’re also losing their ability to understand and adapt. Grandma, in particular, grows angrier and more frightened by the day. And they, as most people will, don’t always react to the relentless loss and grief with the best spirit. Sometimes they are angry and downright mean, and it doesn’t feel right to even say that about people in their situation. But I see how they hurt Mom sometimes (although she understands where they’re coming from), and it makes me mad.

That doesn’t seem right, to be angry at people who are in such pain.

I’m also shaken by how I’ve come to look at medicine’s responsibility to the elderly. It’s sad that medical science has gotten so very good at prolonging life, and yet can’t do a thing to prolong health. Their days are devoted to an endless merry-go-round of medical intervention. They live in constant pain. To me it looks cruel and pointless. I am stringently pro-life, so that’s a shocking admission for me. I don’t see the reason behind this way of living. I look at them and think, if it were me, I would stop the medications. Let me mercifully die of a stroke in my sleep.

It is not, as a Christian, a viewpoint I think I can reconcile with my beliefs. I don’t know what to say about that. I know so much more know about these elderly years, and I understand so much less.

But now there is this opening at the nursing home. They will get the care they need without destroying Mom. She insists she can do it, but I see how slow she is to smile, how weary she is. Ironically, her caretaking of them leaves no time for her to have a relationship with them. There is no time to visit. This move will be good for all of them. Grandma and Grandpa will feel more secure, and Mom will be able to breathe. And sleep through the night.

I cannot help but think, though, that this will be it for them. Their final home. My breath catches on that. We will have to start dividing their belongings soon. There is no turning back. Not that turning back has been an option, but we can’t even pretend any more.

Tonight the weather is taking a dip toward winter. Temperatures are expected to fall below freezing. I spent this morning in the garden, collecting the end of the produce before it froze. Max and Raphi helped me pick tomatoes, proudly prancing over to show me each one they found among the jungle of tomato plants. I snapped jalapeños off their plants, feeling their waxy skin. I chopped down all the basil, washed it, and (with Mom’s help), stripped the leaves off the stems and stored them in baggies in the fridge. Tomorrow I’ll spin them gently in the food processor with some olive oil and freeze small mounds of fragrant chopped basil, to be used all winter long. I’ll use the tomatoes and jalapeños to make salsa.

Tonight, however, I’m thinking about the flat leafed parsley. I never use it in cooking. The boys hate unnecessary green flecks in their food, so I don’t push it merely for parsley. I, however, love the stuff. Every time I go out to the garden, I grab a handful of it and eat it. I love its fresh, spicy taste. It makes my tongue bright green.

There is no way to preserve that soft, crisp leaf of parsley for snacking. In the morning all the hundreds of parsley plants will be limp and dull colored. You just can’t keep that when summer ends.

No matter how much you prepare, in the end you just have to let it go.