Living with the Inevitable
Aging
Sooner or later, your phone will ring. Ours did — not once or twice, but four times over a brief period of six years. Each time the ring signalled a crisis for an aging parent. Are you ready for the ring?
Ring... The first call came in 1974 as an airport page in Indianapolis, Indiana: "Dr. David McKenna. Go to the nearest white telephone for an urgent call." My sister wept as she told me that the doctor had just diagnosed leukemia in our sixty-five-year-old mother, who lived alone in Ypsilanti, Michigan. According to the history of such cases, Mom had nine months to live.
R-Ring... Two years later, in 1976, a second phone call came with the startling effect of an alarm ringing in the middle of the night. Calling from Sarasota, Florida, to Seattle, Washington, my father's second wife tried to be calm as she reported Dad's heart attack. While waiting for the medics to arrive, he had lost oxygen to the brain. Dad had been reduced to a sixty-nine-year-old vegetable.
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R-R-Ring ... Another two years went by before a visiting pastor felt compelled to call us with the fear that my wife's elderly parents could no longer manage their own home in Spring Arbor, Michigan, without the danger of fire or injury. Dad Voorheis, at the age of eighty-eight, showed signs of physical weakening every day, and Mom Voorheis, four years younger, suffered the effects of advancing senility. The pastor recommended a local retirement home with graduated levels of care.
R-R-R-Ring... The fourth call came to our home in Seattle barely two years after we had moved Mom and Dad Voorheis into the retirement village. Our family doctor in Spring Arbor called with the news that Dad Voorheis had fallen and broken his back. With the voice of medical authority, he told us that we had no alternative but to put Dad in the nursing home for prolonged care. Mom, who could not understand what was going on, would have an adjoining bed.
Looking back, I can hardly comprehend the complexities with which we had to deal as a family. Distance made it almost impossible for my wife and me to give close personal attention to our parents' problems. Except for regular visits, our care had to be communicated by transcontinental telephone form Seattle to Michigan, to Florida, and back again to Michigan. Our own obligations to family and work deepened our dilemma as distant caregivers. With four children at home, my wife could not give extended periods of time to be with her aging parents. Furthermore, my position as a university president demanded my presence on campus, and, except for the privilege of occasional side trips to Florida to see my father, time and cost limited the visits.
A Tangled Web
Our personal complications, however, were minor when compared with the tangled web of physical, relational, economic, and spiritual difficulties with which we had to deal. The gamut of physical
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difficulties for our parents ran from natural aging and early senility to acute leukemia, a mysterious heart attack, and death to a brainstem.
Then add to that the complexities of family relationships. My dad had divorced my mother in 1962 and married again, a decision that shifted his affection, increased the distance from his children, and forced us to take choices between him and Mom. On the other side of the family, the relational problems were different, but still difficult. As the son-in-law of Dad and Mom Voorheis, I had to make decisions about their physical and economic welfare that required unbroken trust. Dad Voorheis never doubted my intentions, but Mom, in one moment of lucidity on the day that I sold the family home, snapped at me from the back seat of the car, "What have you done to me? You've taken away my home and sent me to the poorhouse!" Senility had released the fear and hostility that were buried so deeply in the soul of a saint.
Economic decisions involved more than the sale of the family home or health insurance. Our mom's acute leukemia prompted my sister and me to say to the doctor, "Spare no cost in her care." Then, shortly after her death, Dad's heart attack introduced us to a totally different set of economic decisions. With the brainstem dead and all hope of recovery gone, the cost of intensive hospital care proved to be prohibitive. He had to be moved to a nursing home with the prospect of surviving for months or years in his vegetable state. Who would pay the cost? His second wife? His children? Or how would we share?
No sooner had we resolved these questions about my parents than economic problems of my wife's aging parents caught up with us. When they could no longer keep their own home, it had to be sold. But the limited assets of a lifetime in the parish ministry would not last long. With the prospect of spending the rest of their lives in a nursing home with twenty-four-hour care, how would we cover their costs? Medicaid did not ease their haunting fear of being impoverished and dying in the disgrace of the poorhouse, even if it were a Christian nursing home. Their economic crisis required us to take a
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crash course in the durable power of attorney, estate gifts to family, and Medicare provisions for the aging.
Underneath all of these complexities, there were spiritual challenges that we could not anticipate. I discovered that my mom, as a last hope for her healing from leukemia, had sent ten dollars and a handkerchief to a faith healer on television. What would I say to her? At the other extreme, my dad had denied his faith in Jesus Christ at the time of his divorce. For years he had stonewalled me on spiritual matters. What might I have said to him before his heart attack?
Nor can I forget my wife's sense of guilt for not going immediately to be with her father when a nurse took it upon herself to call us and say that he was dying. Add to that her mother's sudden burst of hostility, coupled with a rejection of the church she loved. What do you say? How do your pray? What do you do? When our parents grow old, there are no simple answers.
Nightmare in the Nineties
The facts are in. On the short swing of one generation, dominant numbers in our population are shifting from teenage youth to senior citizens. Advertising is the giveaway. A generation ago, Madison Avenue lived and died on the code word young in its ads. Who can ever forget that "Pepsi Generation"? Today, however, these same ads and commercials feature a middle-aged actress promoting Ultress hair coloring, a grandparent taking a grandchild to McDonald's, a "Golden Girl" pushing a vitamin pill, and senior golfer selling clubs. Madison Avenue is simply reflecting the facts: America is aging and "gray power" is rising. Our senior citizens are fast becoming the largest and most powerful segment in our society.
As always, we have tried to cushion the impact of aging with euphemistic names and age-defying jokes. Rather than admitting that we are becoming, "old," "elderly," or "aged," our preference is to talk
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about "senior citizens" in the "graying of America." And, of course, none of us wants to admit that we are getting old.
In a sermon taped for Preaching Today, Ray Stedman said that he looked into the mirror one morning and said, "What's a young guy like you doing in an old body like this?" His good humor is consistent with the often-told story about parents in their eighties who don't want to go to a retirement village or a nursing home with those "old people." We are not surprised, then, when researchers reports that only 53 percent of persons over eighty admit they they are "old", 36 percent consider themselves "middle aged," and 11 percent still think of themselves as "young".1
Likewise, with our life expectancy moving from 69.7 years in 1960 to 75.4 years in 1990, distinctions are not being made among those whom we used to lump into the single category of being "old." Persons from the age of sixty-five to seventy-four are now being identified as the "young old," while those between seventy-five and eighty-four are the "middle old," and only those over the age of eighty-five are the "old."2
Despite our efforts to rename aging and to joke about becoming old, emerging facts still feed the fear that the "graying of America" will become a "national nightmare." In their book Parenting Your Aging Parents, Francine and Robert Moskowitz chose the subtitle Guidance through the Family Nightmare of the 90s. Here are some of the facts upon which they base their dire prediction:3
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Facts such as these account for the identification of adult children in the next generation as GRUMPIES — Grown Up Mature Professionals. A caricature of their role in an Associated Press cartoon shows them, not only as educated and affluent professionals in their field, but also as children of aging parents who carry in their ever-present briefcase "a checkbook with a small balance, a brochure on saving for college, and Literature on Retirement Homes for Parents."4 In other words, adult children from 1990s and on will have to plan for the care of aging parents as a standard part of their role and responsibility. Yet, because our attitudes, our policies, or our actions are not ready for this revolution, the care of aging parents may become what the Moskowitzes call "the family nightmare of the 90s."
A Christian's Promise
Let me repeat: sooner or later, your phone will ring. It may be the ring of urgency in the middle of the night that makes you sit straight up in your bed and leaves you sleepless for the rest of the night. Or it may
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be the ring of a routine call during the day that also takes you by surprise and pushes all other priorities aside. Still again, it may be the ring that you expected at any time, the ring that sets in motion a planned series of responses to cope with the inevitable. Emotionally, however, there is no way to prepare for a situation that you have never known before. The crisis of an aging parent is unique in itself. Even if we have dealt successfully with the crisis of one parent, the next one will be totally different.
No one can explain, for instance, why the aging, crises, and death of a mother are different from that of a father. Perhaps it is a difference in roles or a difference in bonding. Or does the distinction run so deeply in our hearts and souls that only eternity can unravel the mystery? Whatever the reason, ask anyone who has experienced the crises of aging parents. They will tell us the same story. Dad and Mom are different, not in our love for them, but in the legacy they leave us. They mean something different to us, their crises evoke different emotions in us, and their loss leaves a different kind of hole that can never be filled.
While no one can fully anticipate all of the surprises that come with the experience of aging parents, and no one can use their experience to frame twelve steps for successful sons and daughters, we can learn something from each other. We can learn together a biblical perspective on aging that runs counter to the attitudes of our secular culture. We can learn how a lifetime of love translates into quality of care when our parents grow old. Of course, we can also learn from each other's errors. Some cautions along the way will keep us from stumbling over the same rocks. Best of all, we can learn about the unforeseen blessings that come with advancing age, both for our parents and for us. These "spiritual serendipities" or pleasant surprises may well define the difference between a secular and a Christian view of aging. With eternity in view, a Christian sees in aging the continuity of God's time, the opening of wider horizons, and the giving of new gifts to the child of God. Isn't that the meaning of our creation in the image of God? When our parents grow old, we
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see them living closer to God, growing taller in grace, and moving faster toward heaven.
Books about children as caregivers for aging parents are flooding the market. Some of the books give "how-to-do-it" details for understanding the processes and coping with the crises of aging parents. Parenting Our Parents by Francine and Robert Moskowitz is a good example and a helpful reference. Others are written from a Christian point of view with an autobiographical touch that provides a basis for recommending steps in caring for our parents. Tim Stafford's book As Our Years Increase is an invaluable resource from this perspective. My writing complements these books with a different touch and tone. I have intentionally weighted my writing toward our relational struggles as children of parents who share common faith and yet confront the physical, emotional, social, and spiritual crises that aging inevitably brings. More emphasis, then, is put on the real-life story of my family facing the urgent issues, uncertain choices, and uneasy resolutions of caring for our aging fathers and mothers.
Three specific goals guide my writing. First, I want to flesh out the meaning of God's commandment to "Honor your father and mother" in the contemporary setting of prolonged life with all of its relational complications. How do we honor; respect, and dignify our parents in the crises of our day?
Second, I want to communicate the Spirit of Christ, who fulfilled God's commandment to put priority on caring for our parents. He warned us against the attitude of the Pharisees, "But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down" (Mark 7:11-13). How do we make the gift of caring for our parents a spiritual priority in our day?
Third, I want to pursue the promise of the Lord for those who honor their parents: "that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you" (Exod. 20:21). How do we claim God's promise of long
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life in a good land as we care for our fathers and mothers today? The answer may lie in a simple paraphrase of the Golden Rule: Do unto your parents as you want your child to do unto to you. If love is the motive that turns the cycle of the generations, the "national nightmare" can become the Christian's promise.
Chapter Two || Table of Contents
