We already know that if we don’t raise our own kids, Dr. Fauci or Mark Zuckerberg will.
It’s different when it comes to tending adults. Whether it’s our parents or someone we feel affection for – that doesn’t sound right but you know what I mean – we are equipped better than ever to take care of others. We can call it an inconvenience or a karmic merit badge, crowded together under that leaky umbrella called upbringing, but we do it.
Or we could call it love.
There’s a Twenty One Pilots song, House of Gold, that goes, “She asked me, ‘Son, when I grow old, Will you buy me a house of gold? And when your father turns to stone, Will you take care of me?’”
Watching over someone who isn’t the person they were a day or month ago, a person we’re accustomed to but who now has a new reality, can be scary. Not because something worse will happen to them, but to us. We don’t know what to do. When someone breaks a foot, they eventually get better. They heal. They walk.
But when a person’s internal electrical system short circuits, they’re at a loss and so are we.
So, we try to get our heads all covered up with heart. We adjust, change our schedules and priorities, and do what we think is best even if we have zero experience in caretaking.
When we raise children, we see progress. Curiosity. Weight gain. New teeth.
When we care for those who had a medical surprise, we might see mental gloop. Bewilderment. Contrariness.
There’s no shortage of therapists and pastors and aides to guide us through the learning curve of our new – what shall we call it – “software update.” But really, we’re on our own. Kind of like kindergarten.
We realize quickly that moving someone into our own house saves time and effort. It also means sharing space, more cooking and laundry, and losing the remote twice as often.
A man with whom I’ve had six short conversations since 2016 put me on his Check On list during last February’s freeze phenomenon. He had spent 20 years in prison where he found you-know-who. “Armageddon is coming soon,” he tells me. We talk politics, never in agreement but always in good cheer.
He called me every morning at 7, saying he only checked on his mom and me.
When the Arctic Blob thawed, he moved his mom in with him because he saw that it was simply too time consuming to check on one person in another location twice a day. He did what a practical son does and he did it with his thumbs up.
Then there’s the woman whose husband started getting short with her because he was courting pre-stroke impatience. “What did you do with the salt?” he asked her at dinner.
“Can you imagine?” she asked me. “Not ‘where’s the salt’ or ‘please pass the salt,’ but what did I do with the salt?
“I slid the shaker over in front of him and said, ‘There’s the goddam salt.’ I didn’t mean it as a swear. I didn’t mean it to come out. It was unkind. I was too sensitive. It worked. He backed off. Then he burst out laughing and asked me what I’d done with his wife!”
On this Thanksgiving I really can’t give thought to the pilgrims and Indians because then was then. We still don’t know the real story or the whole story, and either way, all we can do is admire the Wampanoag for sending scouts for more food when Miles Standish ran short.
I give thanks for, and to, aware and wonderful people, here and now, including a man who is just plain crabby. In my head, he’s our Town Crowbar. Every town probably has one, maybe needs one, and I do get tired of being the hole he keeps digging. Nevertheless, I am sort of thankful that he still feels he can offer his point of view without my wanting to go out and buy a bag of lime. Not limes.
The end of the Twenty One Pilots song is the son’s response: “I will make you queen of everything you see, I’ll put you on the map, I’ll cure you of disease.”
What could be better than that?
Well, maybe calling people “rare” instead of “old.” And maybe giving every person we love a standing ovation.