I'm in the "In" group now
Sandwiched between
Both sets of eighty plus
Parents
Instability, LifeAlerts
Nurses, insurance
ER, ICU, PT, ALF
The new vocabulary words
Of accidents, aging
And unhappiness
We see
The mind giving up
On memory
Good judgment
And are helpless
To stop the process
We watch with
The Fates as
The thread stretches
Straining to hear
The snap
I'm in the "In" group
Except I really want
Out
This is written for Peggy's prompt at Poetry Jam poetryjaam.blogspot.com to write about being on the inside looking out or vice versa. I am at a point in life where all of my friends are dealing with aging parents. The press calls it the "Sandwich Generation" because we are taking care of kids and parents at the same time. My kids are grown, (but we're still paying for college..) Both our fathers have had horrific accidents/illnesses Hector's last year, mine this year. Their wives cannot care for them. And we're definitely feeling the squeeze of time demands, etc. The part that is most troubling is, as much as we do, there is nothing we can do to give them back their sense of independence and good health. They see their bodies and their minds failing, realize that they will always require supervision and are very unhappy. Which is an extended grieving process, for all of us, losing them bit by bit. The statistics are, we have succeeded in increasing life span, however, the rate of chronic illness has also risen. I'm not ready to let them go, but sometimes the sadness of the situation is overwhelming--(ER=Emergency Room, ICU=Intensive Care Unit, PT=Physical Therapy, and ALF=Assisted Living Facility)
