I was talking with my mom's cousin last week, when she mentioned she'd be visiting my parents (in Florida, where they live, regretfully, now far from me) this fall. I'd be going down there for a long visit at Christmas, I said."We have to visit as much as we can, don't we," she said, sympathetically.
It hit me, then, that we really do need to do that. Faced with the decline we saw this summer, it's become painfully clear that there may not be many days left when Mom can enjoy herself, say, on a family outing. My folks already cancelled their yearly road trip to Maine because my dad just couldn't handle the driving and related caretaking himself, and I couldn't accompany them. Mom's already started to suffer from incontinence, and forgets to get herself ready before a trip, so there are accidents and so forth.
So today I told my boss at my biggest client (an international non-profit) that I would probably need to scale back my workload come December. I'll visit again during school break in spring, I and whenever else I can fit in some time. The out-of-state factor adds a difficult twist, because my kids are still in primary school.
This episode was painful both professionally and financially -- not least because I started sobbing in the middle of relating the situation. It's just too hard talking about it, still. What will life hold in six months for us all?
No comments:
Post a Comment