Opinion > Star Guests
A Perilous Parenting Path
By Patti Pfeiffer
It's a place I've never been. A pain I've never known. A role I never expected.
Constantly cracking, there's no way for my heart to heal. Focus on this day without fear of tomorrow I constantly coach myself.
Truth has a way of knocking a person upside the head causing the grimness of reality to pierce protection. How did it happen? Where was I?
For so long my rose-colored lenses provided a shield. Through my coveted glasses the view was brightly painted, glossed-over and dramatically different from the dark color of reality.
Relishing, coveting, welcoming, wanting, needing a distorted vision, denial has been my utopia. Yet this night I sat on the patio, knees pulled tightly to chest and rocked as tears flow. Truth ushered in ugliness.
A shadow, a shell of her former self, time is taking mom away, molding into her someone unknown. I'd watched as she walked in a shuffling sort of way. Her shoulders curved, a bend in her once straight stance. Her hands trembling slightly. The person I've known all my life had become a stranger almost overnight.
Mom's no longer the woman who never aged, the woman I wanted her to always remain. In a very brief time she'd gone from acting and appearing decades younger than her birth certificate declared to an old person turning 80 in October.
It seems like only yesterday she was self-reliant and content. The smiles are no more. Grins and laughter melted down to memories. Now she reviews, replays, stays endlessly stuck in and focused on the wretchedness that is her past, been her life.
Today absent. Tomorrow a dread.
Rushing ahead, hurrying toward the end, racing herself to the finish line, mom's engaged in self-destructive behavior. It's no comfort learning from experts that her actions are common among the elderly.
Attempting rescue I feverishly find ways to resuscitate, will life back into her to no avail. It is useless. And I feel helpless and hopeless.
Twisting, turning spinning, churning. Manageable on a good day, intolerable on others, some debilitating, I teeter close to an emotional melt-down, then get up, get a grip.
Hiding or running away seem like enticing invites. Other times I want to pull her tight. No matter. Always she pushes me away. My all seen as nothing, I'm forced to withdraw. Preservation.
Patience is short, my anger long. Holding in, then lashing out. Misguided, misdirected spewing spells. Anger flows, wave after wave and so unlike me. Tracing the source, so opposite of the apparent, it surprised even me.
It has nothing to do with her. It's all about me. To heck with time, additional candles every year, mom's never changed in my mind's eye. Gorgeous. Vibrant. Up for anything. Then, now, always. Thumbing time, I froze mom at 65, the age she visibly appears to be.
So this? The emotional mixture of anger, anxiety, anguish? It's the price I owe. Denial's due.
I'm no stranger to elderly issues. In a supporting role, I buoyed up two friends when their parents' trek took them down. I listened, talked, consoled, offering advice along their tumultuous care-giver's path before walking them through a funeral.
But that was them. Not me. Not my parent. Wrapped in denial, out of touch, comfortable, snug and safe I've been insulated and fortified living in a fairytale Foreverville.
Then a trespasser encroached intent on demolition. Three broken ribs from a fall followed weeks later by another which ushered in a first for mom. A chauffeured ride -- an ambulance trip to an ER.
Welcome my new reality, my undeniable reality.
Always echoing are the words of my sojourner sisters. "I thought I was in control. I was not. I wish I'd just let go, inhaled and exhaled through it all," one shares. "I wish I'd held mom more, hugged her tighter," another tells.
Advice I try desperately to follow, each and every day.
Now is all mom and I have. No matter whom she's become. No matter whom I'm forced to become.
For now, I am learning to be a parent to one I never birthed -- an elderly child conceived from role reversal. In the process comes the daunting task of redefining and learning to be daughter to a mom I've never known.
Patti Pfeiffer is a Star Local News columnist, freelance writer and author. She may be contacted at pattip913@msn.com
Constantly cracking, there's no way for my heart to heal. Focus on this day without fear of tomorrow I constantly coach myself.
Truth has a way of knocking a person upside the head causing the grimness of reality to pierce protection. How did it happen? Where was I?
For so long my rose-colored lenses provided a shield. Through my coveted glasses the view was brightly painted, glossed-over and dramatically different from the dark color of reality.
Relishing, coveting, welcoming, wanting, needing a distorted vision, denial has been my utopia. Yet this night I sat on the patio, knees pulled tightly to chest and rocked as tears flow. Truth ushered in ugliness.
A shadow, a shell of her former self, time is taking mom away, molding into her someone unknown. I'd watched as she walked in a shuffling sort of way. Her shoulders curved, a bend in her once straight stance. Her hands trembling slightly. The person I've known all my life had become a stranger almost overnight.
Mom's no longer the woman who never aged, the woman I wanted her to always remain. In a very brief time she'd gone from acting and appearing decades younger than her birth certificate declared to an old person turning 80 in October.
It seems like only yesterday she was self-reliant and content. The smiles are no more. Grins and laughter melted down to memories. Now she reviews, replays, stays endlessly stuck in and focused on the wretchedness that is her past, been her life.
Today absent. Tomorrow a dread.
Rushing ahead, hurrying toward the end, racing herself to the finish line, mom's engaged in self-destructive behavior. It's no comfort learning from experts that her actions are common among the elderly.
Attempting rescue I feverishly find ways to resuscitate, will life back into her to no avail. It is useless. And I feel helpless and hopeless.
Twisting, turning spinning, churning. Manageable on a good day, intolerable on others, some debilitating, I teeter close to an emotional melt-down, then get up, get a grip.
Hiding or running away seem like enticing invites. Other times I want to pull her tight. No matter. Always she pushes me away. My all seen as nothing, I'm forced to withdraw. Preservation.
Patience is short, my anger long. Holding in, then lashing out. Misguided, misdirected spewing spells. Anger flows, wave after wave and so unlike me. Tracing the source, so opposite of the apparent, it surprised even me.
It has nothing to do with her. It's all about me. To heck with time, additional candles every year, mom's never changed in my mind's eye. Gorgeous. Vibrant. Up for anything. Then, now, always. Thumbing time, I froze mom at 65, the age she visibly appears to be.
So this? The emotional mixture of anger, anxiety, anguish? It's the price I owe. Denial's due.
I'm no stranger to elderly issues. In a supporting role, I buoyed up two friends when their parents' trek took them down. I listened, talked, consoled, offering advice along their tumultuous care-giver's path before walking them through a funeral.
But that was them. Not me. Not my parent. Wrapped in denial, out of touch, comfortable, snug and safe I've been insulated and fortified living in a fairytale Foreverville.
Then a trespasser encroached intent on demolition. Three broken ribs from a fall followed weeks later by another which ushered in a first for mom. A chauffeured ride -- an ambulance trip to an ER.
Welcome my new reality, my undeniable reality.
Always echoing are the words of my sojourner sisters. "I thought I was in control. I was not. I wish I'd just let go, inhaled and exhaled through it all," one shares. "I wish I'd held mom more, hugged her tighter," another tells.
Advice I try desperately to follow, each and every day.
Now is all mom and I have. No matter whom she's become. No matter whom I'm forced to become.
For now, I am learning to be a parent to one I never birthed -- an elderly child conceived from role reversal. In the process comes the daunting task of redefining and learning to be daughter to a mom I've never known.
Patti Pfeiffer is a Star Local News columnist, freelance writer and author. She may be contacted at pattip913@msn.com
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