Just a tiny one or my husband will be commenting about how I need to blog less and work on my “serious” writing more (’cause daddy is waiting to be a kept man), but can we talk about our parents? My father is nearly 81 years old, has cataracts, and a left foot that is basically inoperable due to a serious of strokes and complications from circulatory issues and he is still driving. Yes, still driving. When last I was home my mother wanted me to talk with him about handing over the keys. I told her that all she needed to do was hide them and have my brother-in-law disable Dad’s car if she didn’t want to put her foot down with him. She didn’t do that and he has been in a fender bender of late. No major damage and no one was injured, but I think that is beside the point. I was a bit heartless when I told Mom today that it’s her responsibility as Dad’s caregiver to make the tough calls sometimes and this is one of them. I then took the highest of high ground when I pointed out that I had taken my late husband’s keys away from him before he was even diagnosed with his illness despite his protests and the mutterings and pouting that went along with his disintegrating mind. My last husband was still ambulatory and much stronger than I was whereas my Dad can barely walk from the kitchen table to the sink and spends most of his day in bed or sitting in a recliner in the living room.

But what makes me even more angry is that Dad is in his right mind. He knows perfectly well that he isn’t fit to drive because of his difficulty of movement and blind spots. He knows! And he is just being pig-headed. And yes, I do know that this is an independence issue and hard on his pride and sense of himself as a man. The last part being key because the medication he has had to take over the last nearly three years have changed him physically and causes him embarrassment. Though he tries to have a sense of humor about it like the time my sister was helping me button a dress shirt and it fit a bit snugly, he remarked, “Look at these great breasts and your mother doesn’t appreciate them at all.” The make ego and sense of self is as strong at 80 as it is at 3. A man is a man and he feels less of one, but does that mean we wait until he backs over one of the neighbor kids or his own grandchild before we do what is necessary? (Evil me threw that at my mom too. I take the whole care-taking gig seriously. Though I will grant you that part of me is a bit pissed that I had no choice about the uni-lateral decisions I had to make once upon a time that my mother and my younger sister seem to think are optional.)

Tonight I get to have this lovely conversation all over again with my sister, who is still torqued at me for abdicating my number one son position to run off with Mr. Simpson and live in exile. She is tired and over-burdened and I get that, but she is still in charge. What did she think? That being the oldest was just a perk-filled pleasure romp?

Sometimes being the adult child sucks, but that’s the “adult” part of it.