My Parents

My parents are getting older--and it's now visible....

The past few years have been really tough on my parents. Dad fell down at work two years ago and really screwed up his knee--he had to have two surgeries and all that goes with having that sort of thing happen to you.

Last year, a medical mistake, created a time-line on his life--the dr's said that he would only live a year because of this mistake--he's still here, a year and a few months later.

I am thankful.

But the medical mistake and the knee injury are not friends and it has made life much more difficult than ever before.

Now there's dialysis three times a week and it wears the poor fellow down so much, that you can scarcely recognize this once very powerful and strong man.

The knee injury cripples him because he is so weak from the dialysis that he has to still use a walker--but now, he broke his wrist and can hardly use the walker--so my mother--the same age as he, has the responsibilities of taking care of the numerous things about my father--and it's hard on her. Hard for her to see her once strong and ferocious husband, now being an elderly man--

I said it: elderly.

I can't bring myself to call my mom the E Word yet, but, oh my goodness--I can see now that that's the title for my father. And it's so sad and so scary.

Old age terrifies me.

And time goes by so unbelievably and unfairly fast.

Wasn't it just a few years ago, that I was still living at home, under my parents care, while my boyfriend and I were out running around the neighborhood?

Wasn't it just a few years ago that my parents hair was dark instead of frighteningly white?

It was just a few years ago--but time doesn't slow down.

~B