I think we become better able to care for our elder parents after taking care of our children. Older folk change before our eyes and revert back to less inhibited behavior. How to love that......well.....I can't help dividing responses into just being clear and giving straight answers or ignoring. Patiently enduring is such a challenge at times when I just want to have some chill time myself.
What if both my plethora of children and both sets of parents have needs all at the same time? What do I do? I can only do the next thing and will drop the ball a lot. Trying.....I do beg for understanding that if I can't do another thing, to please overlook. I do hope for other family members to step in some or lots and ease the burden.
Right this very minute I need to get up and put my little people to bed. I am going to push the eject button and spring into action right? My dear father-in-law is less than delighted with my inability to keep up with the de-cluttering. When I am supposed to do with that? Eject button.
Pondering my elders, it is increasingly clear that their sinful self is not a lot different than my sinful self. In fact.....it isn't different. They get tired or just want someone to spend time with. There are things they really like to do but then can't. I probably already said that the last time I posted about this. It is oddly almost easier to be patient with them than with smaller children. The biggest puzzle for me right now, is what to do with dementia driven behavior. Not arguing with them. Yep. Best plan. If they lose control of their own tempers.....that is my next question. What to do then? Pray, praise and give thanks seems fitting. Sigh. I AM amazed and also sad for the aging process and seeing the effect on the parents. Wow. It surely is a learning experience and actually makes parenting my little people much easier. Wait.....I said the opposite a moment a ago.
The bottom line me thinks is little people and old people and all the people in between have feelings and emotions and fears just like me. Seeing the natural progression of brain cells growing together and then growing apart. Yep. That all makes more sense to me now. I guess I am on the other side of brain cells growing together. How does that go? I am baptized into Christ and so are the people I am dealing with. Christ has the sin part covered. Forgiveness of hurts comes easier in light of that. Some day we will truly rest from our labors. Thankful for that. No doubt I will ramble on this subject again sometime soon. Insight welcomed and experience too.
I will look forward to your future ramblings on this subject. No insight to share at this time. Just empathy. The two things that jumped out at me from this post are 1) the comment about how inhibitions decrease in the aged. I don't know if that is always true, but I have certainly seen it in my mom in the last few years. The second thing that jumped out at me was your comment about having more patience with your elderly parents. I am just the opposite. I have much more patience with my children than I do with my mother. Sigh. I think I would do better if I could manage to see my mother as another child. Then I would be more patient. But I can't seem to forget that she's my mother and I still want a mother and it's so very hard to accept that I don't have one anymore.
ReplyDeleteOh Cheryl. That is hard. Very. Perhaps it is a bit easier for m here as I haven't really had a dad, even though he is living, in fifteen or so years. My mom is still doing well and I just help her through. And.....the parents who live with us are Charley's. He struggles with patience with them for sure so I help him through. All of our relationships have changed....a lot. Don't have any words of wisdom for you other than Jesus loves you so much and HE understands.
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