Some years ago, I was visiting my then 86-year-old father in Florida. He told me that he was just diagnosed with lung cancer. “At my age,” he said, “I’m a sitting duck for something like this.” He was philosophical about his diagnosis — he felt that he had lived a long, good life. He decided not to take any treatment and just allow nature to take its course.
Needless to say, I was shocked and upset. Anxious calls flew back and forth between my brother and me. We worried together on the phone and discussed how we would help him manage. At that time, he was taking care of his wife, who had Parkinson’s disease. My brother and I were concerned about how his illness would progress and what he and his wife would need. He lived most of the year in New York City. I lived in Seattle, and my brother lived in Boston. None of us lived next door.
Degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, heart disease and cancer can have long courses. Modern medicine extends the quantity, but not always the quality, of life. At that time, I pondered what my role would be as my father’s health declined.
Many adults stand at this doorstep. We all wonder: What are our responsibilities to our parents? How will those responsibilities impact our relationship with our children and spouses? If my father were to become completely disabled, what would I do? Who would care for him? Should we have him come and live with my brother or myself? Would our spouses support such a decision? How would this impact our marriages? In my busy life, how much time can I realistically devote to his problems?
Most of the time, it’s the adult daughters that take on the mantle of caregiving. These daughters, now mothers, wives and workers, become stretched even further with these new duties. Already engulfed with the demands of family life, this new responsibility is an unwelcome guest. Their spouses and children may resent the attention that now goes toward the older generation.
With these new roles and responsibilities, old parent-child conflicts, hidden from view by time and by distance, can erupt. Ancient resentments reappear. The claims of childhood have been renounced, but complex emotions bubble up from the deep.
Parental illness can also bring out conflicts between siblings. One sibling feels left out of the decision-making. Another feels that the burden of caregiving falls unfairly on their shoulders. Still, another feels guilty for living so far away. Brothers and sisters may be challenged to work out these difficulties without causing hard feelings. This landscape of illness and aging can be fraught with challenging terrain.
During my father’s illness, I traveled once a month from Seattle to New York City. I took the red-eye from Seattle on Thursday night and returned home on Sunday. My brother came in to spend a weekend with my father monthly, too, so my father had two long visits every month. It was a very exhausting year for me. Watching his health and mental capacities decline was very painful and sad. But my monthly trips to New York were also very fulfilling in many ways too. I felt that I had become closer to my father.
When his illness became acute, I spent the last three weeks of his life with him. At the end of his life, he took my brother’s and my hands in his and told us, with tears in eyes, “You both have been good boys.” He died several days later.
What more can a son ask for?
Paul Schoenfeld is a clinical psychologist at The Everett Clinic. His Family Talk blog can be found at www. everettclinic.com/ healthwellness-library.html.
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