My father Norman was never late.
This time he came an hour late to the restaurant, and he came alone. The normally alert Norman forgot to bring my mother Phyllis. The two were inseparable. They never missed Saturday night at this restaurant.
He didn't stop. He drove by and left. The valet said I wasn't seeing things. He confirmed that Norman drove by and sped off. I soon learned that he wasn't going to the office anymore either.
Norman's dementia had set in . . .
Heaven Isn’t On Schedule
Someday, everybody will have to face it – an elderly parent or aging family member needing help. It happens suddenly, when least expected. It’s never the right time, never when convenient for us. But then, it never is.
The signs were all there, staring us in the face – physical decline, memory lapses, a near miss when driving, a call from a neighbor about a fall – but we ignored them. We couldn’t, or didn’t, want to see them. We weren’t ready.
In fact, we were never ready.
Or, maybe, deep down, we just don’t want to be ready. It’s not fun watching our parents get old. It reminds us of our own aging and mortality. We don’t want to see it. To us, our parents are a mirror of our own elderly future, an inevitable future we don’t want to face.
We once looked up to our parents. We thought they would always be there for us. We thought they would always be strong, even invincible. Then, one day, they weren’t so strong.
The parents we love, vigorous when we were growing up, aren’t so vigorous anymore. Basic chores have become monumental tasks. They were once self-sufficient, now they’re needy and helpless. The roles of parent and child have reversed. Our parents have turned into our children, and we the children have become the parents to our parents.
It’s hard to imagine being parents to our parents. You could be 70 years old, when your parents are in their 90s and, yet, they still think of you as their little baby.
It’s even harder being both parents to our parents and parents to our children at the same time, especially if you started having kids when your parents have already started to age and decline.
But when the reality of aging hits our parents, it can be overwhelming. The questions start swirling around in our head. How do we take care of them? How do we manage their daily affairs and pay their bills? Can they stay at home, or will they have to go to a nursing home? How do we find a nursing home? How do we find a caregiver? How do we pay for it all?
Where do we start?
Excerpt from Heaven Isn’t On Schedule by Joel Dubin
Heaven Isn’t On Schedule
This is your guide to taking care of your elderly parents,
before things start to happen . . .
before it’s too late . . .
right now . . .
These are stories from our personal experience taking care of seven elderly family member over the years, including all four of our parents in ten years.
From getting the family together to decide who does what to getting Powers of Attorney and Wills in order, to finding and picking caregivers and nursing homes to funeral planning, this is your elder care one-stop shop.
See you in two weeks. If any of this sounds familiar, the full story is in the book:
Heaven Isn’t On Schedule
Available on Amazon
