Dr. Patricia Stohr-Hunt, writer- and reviewer-extraordinaire, hosts our Poetry Friday roundup this week. Please join us at her blog, The Miss Rumphius Effect to find links to a weekend of poetry goodness!
If you care for or have cared for an aging parent, this week’s post from Courtney E. Martin’s The Unexamined Family blog is well-worth the read.
Excerpted from Courtney E. Martin’s “ten rules on the art of care” the ten rules read like a poem:
- Pay exquisite attention.
- The attention will offer you a pattern.
- The pattern, honored, will lead to trust.
- The trust is deepened, not by perfection, but by a rejection of perfection altogether.
- You will care for the human that needs to teach you something.
- Care is a collaborative art.
- When care is manual labor, scan for delight.
- If you are laughing, you are doing something right.
- There is actually no binary in care.
- The ephemeral art of care is your legacy.
Pay Exquisite Attention
I did not notice how far away handicap parking spots were until I needed to use them. At a local Panera Bread Co, the 5-minute-pick-up spot is steps away from the door. The nearest handicap spot is halfway down the strip mall.
There are twelve handicap parking spaces for the local WinCo Foods. I had to circle the parking lot three times today, waiting for one to become available. My aging parents still want to go to the grocery store, even when I insist my mom use a wheelchair. Even though my father struggles to lift a 5lb bag of potatoes into the cart.
A month ago, I was willing to drop my parents at the front curb with a stern warning to wait for me while I park the car. But my mother has transitioned from cane-to-walker-to-wheelchair in this time. My dad continues to shrink, and I don’t dare leave him long, especially in the summer heat.
I push my mom through the aisles. We are tasked with finding quart-sized sandwich bags. Standing in front of the shelves, as I note the various brands, she struggles to find the words she wants. “Red handles.” She wants the Glad brand. It is both heartbreaking and enlightening all at once.
I would be tempted to zip through and grab the dozen or so items they want. But this is also an outing – an escape from the confinement of the house. When my dad took early retirement nearly forty years ago, he discovered the joy of grocery shopping. He delights in perusing aisles, finding what’s on sale, loading up on bottles of root beer or cans of tuna, or likewise, stubbornly refusing to buy pasta sauce if he knows he can get it somewhere else for less. Never mind that the effort involved in getting to another store is not worth the twenty-five-cent price difference.
There was a time when I would never have had the patience for a 90-minute grocery run for fifteen things. But these days, with their physical decline increasingly evident, I long to give them opportunities to do normal things –with as much grace and dignity as I can help them muster. For them, at ninety and ninety-one, everything is slower, harder, more confusing. I dread the day that I know is coming when they will beg off such an outing.
At the checkout, my dad hands me his debit card and strategically positions my mom at the end of the moving belt. Together, they transfer the scanned items into their reusable shopping bags. My dad loads bags into the car. I load my mom from wheelchair to passenger seat. When I get them home, they want to put their purchases away, but patience has left me. It’s 95 degrees and I am fixated on getting ice cream into the freezer. My dad admonishes that I’m putting the yogurt and cheese on the wrong shelf. Dignity.
They are tired. They sink into their chairs, all of us relieved that I’m going to leave them alone now. I kiss them goodbye, close the front door, walk to my car, and have a good cry.
I’m crying because it is too warm in the house and they don’t seem to care. Because my mom’s soft white hair lays flat against her head, unbrushed; evidence she cannot raise her arm that high. Because my dad’s bony shoulders interrupt my hug and his rheumy-eyed wonder reaches to remember why I’m here. Because lost words and long walks and clocks stop. Because everything is hard for them.
And I love them and wish it weren’t.
pay exquisite attention
In what world does any ninety-year-old not deserve a handicap parking placard?
Never mind finding a medical reason. Can we just concede
life is not going to get easier? Maybe re-think the bingo cards.
Maybe the environmental impact of stamps and throwaway sheets
could be overlooked for a little joy, one less indignity to suffer
because old fingers struggle to place glass stones in small squares.
If care is collaborative, can we raise the tent poles? Leave instructions?
Can we chart the fragile dignity? Speed the laughter? Please?
©draft, Patricia J. Franz
photos courtesy of Pixabay
Patricia Franz writes picture books and poetry. She believes children, dogs, and sourdough have a lot to teach us about life, joy, and wonder. She has raised two boys, four dogs, and holds a master’s degree in Theology with a focus on children’s spirituality. Patricia, her husband, her Bernese Mountain dog, Bonny, and her sourdough starter split their time between the Arizona desert and the Sierra Nevada mountains. 
Remembering
by Joyce P. Uglow 2024
I hope you remember your magic
the dogs you took in for life
birds carved for beauty
Iris grown for color
Aurora Borealis worn for dancing
sheets hung out for freshness
friends made for life
I hope you know the love we feel.
I feel you 💞
I too, have learned that grocery shopping, though transactional in natured, is an outing — and a challenge for elderly parents. Our parents, by not choosing assisted living, choose their children for support… The only thing I can say is though none of us sign up for this, framing support around finding dignity — and humor seems to be a saving grace…
A touching post. The people who make decisions (such as where to put handicapped spaces) are often not the people who know where they will be the most needed.
Courtney Martin’s ten rules do read like a list poem. “Scan for delight” is a great motto.
“Care is a collaborative art.”
Words to reflect on and return to… thank you so much for sharing this, and for sharing your thoughts as well.
Wow, thank you for this. I’m sharing with my sister…
My brother had the full-time care for my mother of all you’ve described, Patricia, though I went home when there was need to help in the big transitions. I am grateful for his love, know it was so hard, as you’ve shown in your words. Your love shines so bright when you write for what’s really needed & true, & though wishes are met with brick walls, your ‘carrying’ on brings a smile, but I also suspect you are biting your tongue! I had various kinds of choices for ‘exquisite attention’ with my husband who had dementia, a road I hope few have to travel. Thank you for sharing that list – truly a poem, for everyone!
Thanks for your sensitive and powerful poem Patricia, my mother will be 91 this month. And for sharing “trust is deepened, not by perfection, but by a rejection of perfection” #4 from “Ten Rules on the Art of Care.”
I’m crying. Oh Patricia, write these words. They are beautiful and heartbreaking and so specific. Last night at the poetry reading, one of the winners wrote about her dad’s heaven, and I was a mess. My dad (still young enough to shop on his own) compares all of the prices by the unit. He will drive across town to save a few cents a gallon. And I know he’s the reason I got out of college without debt–because even though he didn’t make much money, he was so careful about how he spent it.
Also… one more thing. Let me tell you about the IRE I felt when riding the subway in NYC. How you have to be very able bodied to make it around that city with all of the stairs and few elevators. DC is the same way (only there are escalators that help slightly, but not for those who need walkers or wheelchairs).
Patricia, wow. Your emotion, the hard exquisite attention you are paying to your parents, the love and longing for less difficulty for them, it all pours out in your prose and poetry. You have shared simple and such good ideas in your poem. Peace to you all, Patricia.
Patricia-
I am in tears thinking about you and am sending a virtual, long hug. I’ve been there, but now am envisioning myself as the one needing the care down the road. My husband and I talk about the changes we have seen – little things like how ordinary tasks take just a bit longer to complete. We are “paying exquisite attention” I guess. May the art of your care bring you the satisfaction and joy that is your legacy (and some smiles and laughter, too.) I agree, the ten rules read like a poem.
Patricia, your tender look at aging gives me pause. As I read your poem, I float back to the days when my mother moved from the stage of a fabulous, fit grandparent to a fragile women who had to be placed in a nursing home. It broke my heart but I could no longer care for her at home. May your parents be blessed in the golden years. Thank your for noting the words pay exquisite attention-a must in an impermanent world.
Heart-wrenching.
That list of 10 with which you begin your post reads a bit like the cascade poem Rose wrote for Margaret.
Both my parents are gone, but someday this will be me, will be my older brother. I try not to imagine who will take care of me and my dignity when I get there…