Louise Delorme
He came up slowly and shaken and seeing that unsettled me. My dad was not impervious to the effects of aging and I had taken that for granted. With a slight pause he headed to the beach for the safety of his towel. I stayed in the water a while longer, suddenly feeling the weight of all the years that had passed since my youth. I wasn't as young as I thought, nor was my father.
We all know this will happen. Our parents will get old and die, just as we will. But the details are often left fuzzy in the optimistic haze of youth. When I had my children and changed many, many diapers, I never once considered that my parents would one day be wearing a larger adult version. When I wiped the drool off my baby's face, I didn't envision doing the same for my big, strong father.
I live in Canada now and my parents live in Arizona. They are too far away or, more precisely, I am too far away. I chose to move to Canada with my family to start my career. Having grown up in four different states, my parents raised me to embrace the next move. There was always something new to see.
Nevertheless, moving away was difficult. Some of my friends would love to live on the opposite side of the continent from their parents. But my parents and I actually get along pretty well and enjoy spending time together. I know if we lived near each other we'd probably fight all the time and I'd find them and their aging terribly inconvenient and annoying. But I'd like the opportunity to find that out for myself.
When I hold my child in my arms wishing my parents could do the same with me, I know it is I who should be holding them now. I should be cooking for them, cleaning their clothes and trying to make them happy and comfortable. If this also means dealing with diapers, so be it. We're all heading there, back to that place of vulnerability, uncertainty and need. Somewhere in all of that, perhaps also back to a place of peace.
On my home voicemail I have a few messages saved in perpetuity — from my children leaving silly, cute and sometimes tearful messages from their dad's house, and a couple from my parents. I have become as aware of preserving their sweet moments as I am of my children's. I want to make home movies of them playing golf, preparing a meal, hugging me or just sitting in a chair on the porch. My parents are so much closer to being taken from me, why haven't I been preoccupied with noting down the things they say and do the way I've done in my kids' baby books?
While we looked for someone to help my mom as my dad's needs became more than she could handle alone, I questioned so much about my otherwise exciting and happy life. Have all the benefits of modernity resulted in this: parents dying with their children scattered across the globe pursuing their livelihoods, yet caught in the illusion that we are still close because of the Internet?
The poorest people in the world still often ease toward death with their family and community surrounding them. We're lucky if we get the phone call in time to make travel arrangements to get to their bedside before it's too late.
Recently I was in the Philippines for my work as an anthropology professor. I travel to many corners of the world and try to understand the way others live their lives, while trying all the while to make sense of my own. As I drove through the Iloilo countryside I glanced at the tiny homes flanking the dirt roads — one large room at best with flimsy walls and corrugated steel roofs to protect from the tropical rains. Homes without running water or the Internet. Homes full of dust. Homes full of family.
Liesl L. Gambold lives in Halifax.
© Copyright 2009 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc
April 27, 2009
CANADA: Our Global Family
.
TORONTO, Ontario / Globe and Mail / GlobeLife / April 27, 2009
Facts & Arguments Essay
Our global family
My parents took care of me and I feel I should be there to help as they age. Instead I'm in another country
By Liesl L. Gambold
The week my daughter stopped wearing a night diaper, my father started wearing one. The coincidence was almost unbearable.
I spoke to my mother on the phone one night and as she began her litany of exhausted complaints — wet beds, mounds of laundry — I quietly decided I wouldn't pass on my news. After all, my daughter was 6 and most people would think she had long stopped wearing diapers. My father, on the other hand, is a former professional football player and coach and, at 79, has Parkinson's disease.
My dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's 10 years ago, just after I returned from living in Russia for a year, where I had been completing my doctoral research in anthropology. Upon my return there was a family reunion. Within the first day I noticed my dad's arm shaking. It wasn't terribly obvious, but after being away for an extended period of time, I took note of all the little details I had missed. I asked my mom about it and she shrugged it off — he was, she reminded me, getting older.
I had glimpsed his aging myself a few years earlier. Dad and Mom had come to visit me in Los Angeles while I was in graduate school. We went to the beach one afternoon and Dad and I went boogie boarding. I thought nothing of him, at 66, paddling along beside me, 28. That is, until he caught the lip of a large wave that retreated quickly beneath him, dumping him unceremoniously head first onto the sand.
Louise Delorme
He came up slowly and shaken and seeing that unsettled me. My dad was not impervious to the effects of aging and I had taken that for granted. With a slight pause he headed to the beach for the safety of his towel. I stayed in the water a while longer, suddenly feeling the weight of all the years that had passed since my youth. I wasn't as young as I thought, nor was my father.
We all know this will happen. Our parents will get old and die, just as we will. But the details are often left fuzzy in the optimistic haze of youth. When I had my children and changed many, many diapers, I never once considered that my parents would one day be wearing a larger adult version. When I wiped the drool off my baby's face, I didn't envision doing the same for my big, strong father.
I live in Canada now and my parents live in Arizona. They are too far away or, more precisely, I am too far away. I chose to move to Canada with my family to start my career. Having grown up in four different states, my parents raised me to embrace the next move. There was always something new to see.
Nevertheless, moving away was difficult. Some of my friends would love to live on the opposite side of the continent from their parents. But my parents and I actually get along pretty well and enjoy spending time together. I know if we lived near each other we'd probably fight all the time and I'd find them and their aging terribly inconvenient and annoying. But I'd like the opportunity to find that out for myself.
When I hold my child in my arms wishing my parents could do the same with me, I know it is I who should be holding them now. I should be cooking for them, cleaning their clothes and trying to make them happy and comfortable. If this also means dealing with diapers, so be it. We're all heading there, back to that place of vulnerability, uncertainty and need. Somewhere in all of that, perhaps also back to a place of peace.
On my home voicemail I have a few messages saved in perpetuity — from my children leaving silly, cute and sometimes tearful messages from their dad's house, and a couple from my parents. I have become as aware of preserving their sweet moments as I am of my children's. I want to make home movies of them playing golf, preparing a meal, hugging me or just sitting in a chair on the porch. My parents are so much closer to being taken from me, why haven't I been preoccupied with noting down the things they say and do the way I've done in my kids' baby books?
While we looked for someone to help my mom as my dad's needs became more than she could handle alone, I questioned so much about my otherwise exciting and happy life. Have all the benefits of modernity resulted in this: parents dying with their children scattered across the globe pursuing their livelihoods, yet caught in the illusion that we are still close because of the Internet?
The poorest people in the world still often ease toward death with their family and community surrounding them. We're lucky if we get the phone call in time to make travel arrangements to get to their bedside before it's too late.
Recently I was in the Philippines for my work as an anthropology professor. I travel to many corners of the world and try to understand the way others live their lives, while trying all the while to make sense of my own. As I drove through the Iloilo countryside I glanced at the tiny homes flanking the dirt roads — one large room at best with flimsy walls and corrugated steel roofs to protect from the tropical rains. Homes without running water or the Internet. Homes full of dust. Homes full of family.
Liesl L. Gambold lives in Halifax.
© Copyright 2009 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc
Louise Delorme
He came up slowly and shaken and seeing that unsettled me. My dad was not impervious to the effects of aging and I had taken that for granted. With a slight pause he headed to the beach for the safety of his towel. I stayed in the water a while longer, suddenly feeling the weight of all the years that had passed since my youth. I wasn't as young as I thought, nor was my father.
We all know this will happen. Our parents will get old and die, just as we will. But the details are often left fuzzy in the optimistic haze of youth. When I had my children and changed many, many diapers, I never once considered that my parents would one day be wearing a larger adult version. When I wiped the drool off my baby's face, I didn't envision doing the same for my big, strong father.
I live in Canada now and my parents live in Arizona. They are too far away or, more precisely, I am too far away. I chose to move to Canada with my family to start my career. Having grown up in four different states, my parents raised me to embrace the next move. There was always something new to see.
Nevertheless, moving away was difficult. Some of my friends would love to live on the opposite side of the continent from their parents. But my parents and I actually get along pretty well and enjoy spending time together. I know if we lived near each other we'd probably fight all the time and I'd find them and their aging terribly inconvenient and annoying. But I'd like the opportunity to find that out for myself.
When I hold my child in my arms wishing my parents could do the same with me, I know it is I who should be holding them now. I should be cooking for them, cleaning their clothes and trying to make them happy and comfortable. If this also means dealing with diapers, so be it. We're all heading there, back to that place of vulnerability, uncertainty and need. Somewhere in all of that, perhaps also back to a place of peace.
On my home voicemail I have a few messages saved in perpetuity — from my children leaving silly, cute and sometimes tearful messages from their dad's house, and a couple from my parents. I have become as aware of preserving their sweet moments as I am of my children's. I want to make home movies of them playing golf, preparing a meal, hugging me or just sitting in a chair on the porch. My parents are so much closer to being taken from me, why haven't I been preoccupied with noting down the things they say and do the way I've done in my kids' baby books?
While we looked for someone to help my mom as my dad's needs became more than she could handle alone, I questioned so much about my otherwise exciting and happy life. Have all the benefits of modernity resulted in this: parents dying with their children scattered across the globe pursuing their livelihoods, yet caught in the illusion that we are still close because of the Internet?
The poorest people in the world still often ease toward death with their family and community surrounding them. We're lucky if we get the phone call in time to make travel arrangements to get to their bedside before it's too late.
Recently I was in the Philippines for my work as an anthropology professor. I travel to many corners of the world and try to understand the way others live their lives, while trying all the while to make sense of my own. As I drove through the Iloilo countryside I glanced at the tiny homes flanking the dirt roads — one large room at best with flimsy walls and corrugated steel roofs to protect from the tropical rains. Homes without running water or the Internet. Homes full of dust. Homes full of family.
Liesl L. Gambold lives in Halifax.
© Copyright 2009 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc
