God would not call us to a task that requires us
to neglect what He’s already assigned to us.
I hate having to tell my parents I can’t be there for them,” Ron said. “But sometimes it’s unavoidable. My wife and I tag team the best we can. We’ve even taken separate vacations so that one of us is here for my live-in elderly parents’ needs.”
Whose needs come first? No matter how diligent we are to maintain a healthy balance, no matter how skilled we get at involving others in sharing the load, God is the only One who can help us determine whose needs take priority at any given moment.
“I’m caught in the middle, the knot in the center of a tug-of-war for my time and attention. I’m either shortchanging my immediate family or my extended family . . . or my church . . . or my job . . . or myself,” Cathy said.
Unique seasons of life call for unique solutions, relinquishing preconceived ideas of how much we can handle on our own.
Some equate the season of caring for aging parents with the stresses related to having a newborn in the house. But it may be more like having quintuplets in the house, because the juggling act of responsibilities is intensified.
Many who care for aging parents express frustration that the needs of their parents almost seem in competition with the needs of their children. They don’t want to think that way. But the idea of being sandwiched between the needs is not a catchphrase. It’s reality.
What’s intriguing is that blending the two contrasting caregiving opportunities may provide a partial solution—and more than a few teachable moments.
Here’s Sandra’s story:
“Years ago, when my beloved grandmother ‘Mama Farley’ died at age ninety, my husband, Don, and I decided our five-year-old daughter, Holly, and six-year-old son, Jay, would attend the Kentucky funeral with us. During the long drive, we talked about heaven and told our children that Mama—the part we couldn’t see—was already with the Lord.
“Then I, a veteran of Southern funerals, told about the part they would see. She’d be lying in a big box called a casket, surrounded by flowers. A lot of people would be in the room, I said, and many would be crying because Mama Farley couldn’t talk to them anymore. I talked about the sad hymns the people would sing, what the minister would say, and even about the procession to the cemetery after her adult grandsons carried the casket to the big car called a hearse.
“Then, most important of all, I asked if they had any questions. Jay wondered about practical matters, such as how they would put the casket into the ground, but Holly just stared at me, her eyes round with silent wonderings.
“When we arrived at the funeral home, we held the children’s hands and walked into the flowered area. I studied Mama Farley’s dear, ancient face and thought of the godly example she’d been. Lost in my memories, I was startled by Holly’s whispered question: ‘Is she breathing?’
“I hadn’t anticipated a question like that, and it required more than just a quick ‘No, of course not.’ Suddenly this business of explaining death even to myself had become difficult. How could I help a child grasp what I couldn’t?
“ ‘Well, Holly . . . ,’ I stalled, searching for something both simple and theologically sound.
“Jay turned from studying the casket handles to face his little sister. ‘No, Holly, she’s not breathing. Remember? The breathin’ part’s in heaven.’
“Since that long-ago April day, I’ve stood before all too many caskets. But even with tears running down my cheeks, I am comforted as I remember a little voice confidently announcing, ‘The breathin’ part’s in heaven.’ ”
Weaving children into the entire life cycle can make life so much richer than keeping their care and the care of aging parents separate.
“Even though she was ‘feeling her age,’ my mother-in-law took my daughter one day and taught her how to make her cinnamon rolls from scratch,” Carmen said. “She wanted to be sure to pass on that tradition.”
Some of the most well-adjusted young people I know are those who see themselves as part of an extended family—the very young and the very old. They find their rhythm within the pulse of the family as a whole and understand better than most where their needs fit during any given moment.
We wrestle with thinking it’s an all-or-nothing game. “If I can’t be there for my child’s every breath or if I can’t be there for my parent’s every sigh,” we think, “I’m failing on both counts.” But that’s not how life’s rhythm operates. It’s syncopated and varied, with fast and slow passages, crescendos and decrescendos, youthful needs combined with needs of the elderly.
Is it difficult music to master? Well, not everyone masters it. But we keep practicing.
Life will hand us plenty of practice time.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of us that the needs of aging parents would dovetail with the needs of our careers and our growing children. Math can tell us that much. Our preparation for that season of life is simpler than we might assume.
It’s directly related to our surrender to the rhythms of grace, to walking moment by moment according to the precise direction of the Spirit of God. With our eyes on the Director’s baton, we will find priorities aligning, sometimes colliding, and then resolving into a pattern as harmonious as possible when aging is the issue.
“Then the way you live [including caregiving decision-making] will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit [as you serve both your children and your parents]. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better” (Colossians 1:10 NLT, bracketed material mine).
My parents
Or my children,
God?
The question never ends.
Which one needs me most
Right now?
Which is more important?
How can I ever know for sure?
My Child,
Do you think I know all things?
Even this?
Yes, Lord.
Then here’s an idea.
Follow My lead.