The Heaviest Thing Of All

[Author’s note: Because of the personal nature of this piece, I ask that it not be shared outside of our Prose community. Thanks.]

Both my parents are in their 80′s. For Christmas, since there isn’t a single thing they needed or wanted, I gave them the gift of myself. Living three hours away, I don’t spend enough time with them. And they need my help. And they say they miss me. I miss them, too.

So, this was the week they cashed in their gift. I told them to make a list of the things requiring my attention so we could have a game plan.

The first thing on the list was to help my father pick out a walker. Let me tell you, that might sound like a pretty simple errand, but when your father has always been a huge force in your life - strong and robust - this was a painful exercise I would not wish on anyone. There was a lump in my throat throughout the entire process because I could see how defeating it felt for my dad. When we went to lunch afterward, he burst into tears...twice. It was only the fourth time in my entire life that i’ve seen him cry. The first time was the passing of his mother. The second was during an intervention for someone he loves. The third was the passing of his brother. All reasonable and relatable, and external. This time was different. This time it came from within, from abstract thought that scared him and made him sad. It was so much harder to watch.

The second thing they wanted me to do was amend their wills. Like a revolving door on a busy building, four people went in and two people came out, just like that. Things have changed since they wrote them thirty years ago. But back then, they seemed distant and hypothetical. Now, things are getting real and the documents urgently required updating.

Next up: early spring cleaning - closets, drawers, boxes... Fourteen jumbo contractor bags later and we barely put a dent in over 50 years of accumulated memories spent in this house. All the while, my mother was reminiscing about the time she bought those beautiful shoes or which dress she wore to which wedding. Going through their clothes brought the past to her mind, but it made me think of the future, of things I didn’t want to think about. Thank god I brought the dog with me. It gave me an excuse to get some air and hide my feelings.

In their presence, I do what I always do; I am a performer. I sing and joke and keep it light. I challenge them to Jeopardy while we eat our evening meal. We laugh and talk and it keeps our minds off the real reason that I’m here.

It’s been exhausting, on every level. So, even though I’m younger by many decades, I have been the first to go to bed every night. But once I get there, I lie awake in the dark of my childhood bedroom, and worry. I worry about them falling on the stairs. I worry about them slipping in the bathroom. I cannot rest until I know they’re safe in their bed. And when I leave them in the morning, after their dentist appointments and a trip to the dry cleaner, I will worry some more on that three-hour drive home. I’ll worry that one of them might not be here the next time I come back.

The weight of that is the heaviest thing of all.