Senior Day Care

(photos to follow by august 6)

So, here they are, after all these years. Going off to Senior Day Care. I get up early and go over to drive them there.

First order of business, "Where are Dad's teeth?" I go upstairs and retrieve them gingerly from a Styrofoam cup where they have soaked and rested all night.

Emily stands over him as he puts them in.

We get ready, slowly to go to our Trial Day of Senior Day Care. I watch them poignantly, the way a mother would watch over her child going off to Day Care for the first time. I watch them as they come out of the house. The morning sun cast behind them...bathed in light, they are cloaked in light as they walk, somewhat unsteadily towards the car. I watch them..bathed in light...as if all their transgressions and faults and bickering were just somehow dissolved in that one moment of purity...when light envelopes them...

and then they are just walking towards the car..they get in and I drive them over..

making sure they get out just right and yes, go sit on the bench over there....while I park the car...yes..just over there..sit down....

I park the car.

and there they are...sitting on the bench..like obedient children..

We walk into the Senior Day Care. It is a caring environment...that feels nurturing and stable.

I hug them and leave them to their day..

It is a busy day for me..I rush around..from here to there and back again...and yet at one point of my day...I find myself driving past Senior Day Care place..just like any anxious parent wondering how their child is doing on their first day away..

Later, I pick them up. My dad is talking more than usual...my mother seems relaxed and happy. I hug the director...We speak briefly..

Home again. A good day after Senior Day Care.

the setting sun bathes us in a different kind of light..

Labor

It was so hot today. Sticky humidity clinging to us as we sat in the backyard doing paperwork. Paperwork for help, paperwork for Aging and Disability, and paperwork for neighborhood help. Exact boxes to check and lines to sign and date. Again and again.

So hot as we sat there, the colorful fuchsia phlox, the swaying pines all bearing witness to our sweat and our work in the shade.

How I longed to go to the beach. But duty kept me working because of the practical outcome of all the pages, the boxes and the need.

My mother. Alternately anxious and engaged, then anxious again. I look at her thin arms, her lined face and sink back into memory... I say to her. "I'll bet that time you were pregnant with me 58 years ago must have been sweaty and tough if it was as hot as this." She shrugs and says.."My pregnancies were easy, they didn't bother me."
And onto the next task of filling out papers and checking bank statements.

It is not easy to be with her when she is anxious. She says " Fill my void." I hold her hand. Just as she labored and birthed me decades ago, now I labor with her and hold her hand through the tough moments. It is not easy. Her difficult inner moments manifest and she can't be left alone. Anxious, anxious, anxious. Then a peaceful moment comes and her smile shines........like the sun breaking through clouds.

I hold her hand and labor through the difficult moments...waiting to birth happy moments of relief and serenity...even fleeting.

Laboring we journey on. I hold her hand as she journeys and labors through the difficult travail and uncertain inner terrain of old age. We labor on.
I hold her hand.