Role Reversal

Since I returned from my stint as dishwasher during A Week in the Desert, I’ve been leaning into another role — that of daughter. Of all the positions I’ve held in my life, I’ve held this one the longest. I’ve been a daughter since the day I was born, but the role today looks nothing like it looked on that first day.

On day one, I was totally helpless and in need of almost continuous 24 hour care. I was the third of four, so by the time I showed up on the scene, my mom and dad already had a two year old and a four year old to tend to, but somehow they found a way to protect, feed, diaper, rock, clothe, and otherwise care for me in those early days.

And their work became a gradual release of responsibility — to show the four of us how to move through life without harming ourselves, to teach us first how to eat solid foods and eventually how to prepare them ourselves, to manage our own personal hygiene, to find our own ways to deal with the challenges and disappointments of the world, to find, make, or buy our own clothing, and to eventually care for ourselves and then the others in our lives.

And in these last few years, our responsibilities have shifted our gaze back to where we began.

This is the way of life, of course. Many of us get the opportunity to parent our own children, to move them through the phases of less and less dependency on us, and some of us also get an opportunity to witness our parents as they gradually lose their independence and need us to step back into their lives to lend a hand.

We are there right now, and although our parents appreciate our willingness to step back in, it is not without some annoyance at their need. Last week, after we returned from Arizona, I made my way first to the hospital to check on my stepfather who had had a major surgery and was in the beginning stages of recovery. He wanted me to visit, but he also wanted me to leave. I can’t get inside his mind, but I can see that he is rather helpless — dependent on hospital staff to bring him ice chips, to help him move from the bed to the chair, and to change his dressings. He didn’t likely see this for himself — he didn’t see cancer, surgery, or an extended hospital stay, and I can tell he’s not a fan. He has never minded others making him food or refilling his drinks, but being in this compromised situation is somewhat humiliating, somewhat depressing. So, as I check in, I remind myself to be kind, to be respectful, and to help where I can, and I have do things I’ve never had to do before. I have to tell him what day it is, remind him that he won’t be going home for a while, assure him that I will go care for my mother.

He reaches for my hand as I leave — this one who’s never been super emotionally demonstrative — and I promise him that I will call, that I will be back in a few days.

I leave and drive to my mother’s, watch her take the rollers out her hair and apply lipstick, stand closely when she makes her way down the stairs, help her into the car, buckle her seat belt, walk slowly beside her when we enter a store, move away to give her some freedom, but stay close enough to make sure she is safe. While she appreciates me being there, she does not like to role shift. She has been fiercely independent even during times when her ability to be so was quite limited, so to depend on her children — the very ones who she has spent her life fighting to provide for — is quite uncomfortable.

But depend on us she must. Because of her limited vision, she can no longer drive, yet she has myriad doctor appointments and her husband is an hour away in the hospital and will likely be there for a couple more weeks. We take turns showing up — fixing things around the house, vacuuming the floors, driving her to appointments, helping pay the bills.

She thanks us over and over and over, and sometimes she says, “Now go home. You have your own things to do. I am fine,” but as she says them, she seems a little unsteady on her feet, a little weary, a little unsure.

Nevertheless, I leave. I drive back to the hospital. I sit next to my stepfather as he swallows the ice chips he’s been allowed for the hour. I find his phone charger. I listen to his nurse detail his progress and the goals they want him to meet before he is discharged to rehab. I sit next to him as one of the Bourne movies plays silently on the wall-mounted television. I hear his roommate snoring. Then, as I stand to leave, he reaches for my hand.

I promise to call. I assure him that my brothers are checking on our mom. I say I’ll be back in a few days. I walk away.

Back in my car, I call my mother to see if she’s taken her medication, to give her an update on my stepfather, her husband. I admit I’ve walked away with her charge card in my wallet. I promise to be back in a few days.

She thanks me over and over and over, and I finish driving home.

And today, I’m headed back — first to the hospital, then to my mother’s house.

It’s a gradual re-connecting. It’s beginning to hold more tightly to what was once let go.

She sees it as a burden. I see it as a privilege.

Not everyone gets to place a warm flaxseed pillow behind their 82 year old mother’s neck. Not everyone gets to clip the fingernails of a stepfather who has been at times annoying, disappointing, and problematic but nevertheless present throughout my life.

I’ve been building muscle for this role my whole life, and I’m thankful to have the strength to show up now.

Honor your mother and [step]father… Exodus 20:12