‘Our death panel is meeting,” we tell each other, with a sly smile. Thinking it’s sort of funny, sort of nice, sort of not nice. After all, it’s our four adult kids we’re talking about.
Our kids wanting to be strategic, ahead of the game. Although we know they know it’s no game. Haven’t they already faced two other parents with dementia and all the decisions, signatures, office visits, arrangements, surprises and sorrows and all that involves?
And now they are seeing us as we are: aging. The ways we poop out early, the ways our bodies labor, the ways we often need a hand to get out of the ocean, as currents, waves and embankments betray our footing. Perhaps remembering how we were the ones who once led them into the surf, taught them to ride waves, dive under breakers and laugh at the tumble and commotion of the sea’s power. Not now, not anymore when it takes a strong hand to help us out of low slung chairs or in and out of kayaks or over icy pathways.
They are patient with our occasional forgetting. Don’t often roll eyes or give one another a smirky grin when we abuse the facts or confuse their names. But as I said, we know they are watching.
Not that we aren’t watching as well. Them, of course, as they are forging their own ways in the world. But each other, I mean, he and I. Co-recording doctor appointments, taking notes, keeping a calendar, sticky pad notes to remember the pills, the vet, the advice to drink more water.
Always more water. Always more pit stops that go with the more water. “Didn’t you just?”
In truth, we are moved and grateful that our family, a blended family, wants to be an effective team as we get old. We are so gratified by their friendships and pleasure in each other’s company; ours as well (usually.) In part, they want to be as well prepared as possible for the future and the losses that lie ahead.
Although who is ever really prepared for losses? I certainly wasn’t when it was my turn to say goodbye, blindsided by the grief that swamped each day’s acknowledgment. How often I found myself talking to clouds in two-way conversations where I voiced both parts. Revisiting and compiling long-ago regrets as well as needing to pass on the events that survived them.
These good children of ours want to avoid the conflicts that they know occur as decisions are required. Hard decisions, timing decisions, attentions and shared sacrifices. And we want to spare them whatever trouble is going to be troubling.
And sure, we mean to clean out our closets, hone the bookshelves, delete the files, toss old papers, catalog the photos and yet we don’t, do we?
We’ll do it tomorrow. We think there’s time. Plenty of time.
Ruth Charney lives in Greenfield.