Life and a final childhood

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Recently I wrote about my mother in-law’s stroke and her being moved to our home for hospice care. Somehow, Nancy managed to live 13 days before quietly passing while the family enjoyed a home cooked meal topped off with Apple hill cake. There could not have been a more perfect time for her passing. It is amazing how easy it is to think of Nancy despite the suddenness of her death. My wife has lost her best friend but is processing and accepting her loss quite well and is now glad to be getting back to her more normal and routine life.

However, when it comes to Al, Nancy’s husband of 59 years and my wife’s father, it’s a different story. On more than one occasion, Al has said, “She wasn’t suppose to go before me.” We all thought this. We all believed this. And now we are all getting a wake up call, but no one more than Al.

Al needs around the clock care that he thought only Nancy would provide for him. Now he lives in an assisted care facility where different people are assigned to meet his needs. On paper, it sounds simple, but it is not. It’s easy to ask someone you have spent the last 59 years with to help hold you up while you stand and pee, but not so when it is a worker you hardly know. Moving into a care facility with a loved one is fine because you tell yourselves you are downsizing. However, doing so by yourself is nothing short of terrifying.

Let’s just say 79-year old people are not wired to become the “new kid in school,” even when you are like Al and have moved almost 40 times over the course of your life. You see, while he is the new kid at school, his “home” is now 388 square feet and does not come with a wife who has prepared his favorite food or three kids to share his day with. Even the most positive person, something anyone who knows Al will describe him as, has great difficulty accepting this.

In his brief time at his new place, Al has twice fallen “ever so gently” and remained on the floor until it was time for someone to check in on him. He carries an emergency button around his neck, but for whatever reason, he chooses not to use it. My guess is he hopes he can rest up a bit and pull himself up before someone finds him. It is just one of the lies these “old kids” try to get away with.

One of his caregivers shared a story with my wife and me about finding someone’s meds in a planter in the dining area. The person thought they were pulling a fast one on the staff only to be found out because she was the only one living there who was prescribed that particular medicine.

If you live long enough, you often experience a final childhood. However, while dependent on others to meet your primary needs, we lack the energy and belief that anything and everything is possible. That happens when you have lived life. Our every move becomes more calculated. Impulsiveness is replaced with caution, and sometimes even fear. The knowledge of the first childhood we enjoyed decades earlier is replaced with an all too often unspoken understanding that this one ends much differently.

It is this unspoken truth that speaks volumes. Just as it is important to communicate with a child about their days, dreams, and fears and provide them with reassurance all will be well, it is just as important to do the same with those who face their final childhood. Unfortunately, this is not as easily done as it is suggested.

All of us, young, old, or somewhere in between need reassurance from the people we love and cherish most. While a five-year old may feel comfortable being vulnerable and open with the people they love, when life is fast forwarded another 70 or 80 years, that vulnerability is all too often replaced with a desire not to confront one’s impending mortality.

The organized will make sure their affairs are put in order so as to create as little fuss as possible when they are gone. The strong will find it easier to talk about what lies ahead for them even when their children do not want to hear about it. The religious will tell you their life is in God’s hands and until he sees fit, they figure he must still have a purpose for them. And the cranky will tell you they intend to live and do as they damn well please and no one is going to tell them otherwise.

As someone who spent 30 years teaching, I have taught the organized, the strong, the religious, and the cranky. I have watched many outgrow their “phases” and become mature and contributing adults. Recently, I had the pleasure to run into a former student who now works at Al’s facility.

We are all children in some form or other. If we are lucky enough to be a parent or grandparent, we get to marvel at the joy of childhood and all it offers. If we live long enough, we also witness first hand the final childhood of those who brought us into this world and helped mold us into who we are.

And when we do, we can’t help but reflect on where our own lives have taken us and wonder, worry, and plan for the day we become a child one final time.

James Moore

Jim is a life long resident of California and retired school teacher with 30 years in public education. Jim earned his BA in History from CSU Chico in 1981 and his MA in Education from Azusa Pacific University in 1994. He is also the author of Teaching The Teacher: Lessons Learned From Teaching. Jim considers himself an equal opportunity pain in the ass to any political party, group, or individual who looks to profit off of hypocrisy. When he is not pointing out the conflicting words and actions of our leaders, the NFL commissioner, or humans in general, he can be found riding his bike for hours on end while pondering his next article. Jim recently moved to Camarillo, CA after being convinced to join the witness protection program.