You Can't Go Home Again · 7:35am Jan 12th, 2022
At least not in the sense most of us think of when we think of home. (more after the jump)
If you've read some of my more recent blogs, you might recall that my parents have been working on a plan to move out of their home and transition to a senior/assisted living arrangement near us.
For my newest followers, or those who didn't catch the earlier posts, here's the TLDR: My folks are in their 70s and generally in good physical health. However, my mom has Alzheimers and over the last two years it's really begun to show its ugly head. My dad's still sharp as a tack but he knows he won't be able to keep up the strong (for his age) pace forever, and caring for mom AND keeping up a house by himself will eventually be too much. They're going to need help.
So they traveled up to visit us last summer and with help of an 'agent', went about scouting various assisted living places. They found a great one not far from us. Good stuff. And my dad figures if they have to move, do it while he's still healthy enough to mentally/physically handle the logistics, paperwork, cleaning out closets, etc.
Well, their house went up for sale a few days ago and it's already under contract. Barring weird delays they'll likely be up here by the beginning of March, in a temp apartment while they wait for the spot they need in the assisted living place to open up. (and it will; just a matter of waiting a bit)
So what does all this have to do with the blog title?
Arguably (and in many ways I agree), home is where ever your family is. 'Mom and Dad's place' is that guaranteed safe harbor. The port that's always open no matter the storm.
*Caveat: I recognize this is NOT everyone's lived experience with their parents/family, and I do NOT mean to trivialize or dismiss that. I speak here only of my own POV
So in that sense, will 'home' still be here? Well technically yes. The 'assisted' apartment they'll be moving into eventually will be their residence, so that 'port in a storm' will be there too. But I can't stay there either. At least not like I used to as a teen, or as a college kid back on break, or as a married man home for the holidays with my wife. In an urgent situation on *their end* I can crash there in order to assist as needed, but that's about it.
In that sense, "home" just got sold for the last time. No more 'my old room', or 'that porch chair I loved all the time'. Hell, nearly all of that's gone, as my parents (mainly Dad) have spent the last 5-6 months slowly selling/donating/downsizing 50+ years and 6 total homes' worth of stuff. When we visited over the holidays the house felt empty in the bad kind of way.
Part of me wants to say everything I just typed is just negativity, and home is always there. And I really think that's the right way to think of this. But I guess right now it's hard to accept that as correct? I dunno.
Or, a thought struck me while sitting in the hotel (covid worry had us get a hotel, just in case someone got sick from travelling) over the holidays. Maybe the root of all this is that I've spent my whole life as the receiver of care/support (in various ways) from my parents, but now the table has turned. Now they're the ones needing support and care from me. It's like a teeter-totter that's slowly crept up, and I never noticed the change until it was already dipping the other way. And I don't think I've fully figured out how to process that. How to take on that role.
I guess all I can do is the best I can. I owe them that much at the very least, as always.
Anyway, I just needed to write all that out. No need to crank up the sympathy or anything. But if anyone's been through similar with their family, I'll take any POV/advice you've got.
Be well, my friends!
-GMP
The place you grew up was only ever transitory, even if it formed a significant part of your life. It was always going to go away in some fashion.
That this place technically still exists but is no longer the same, or even accessible to you doesn't really matter.
There's nothing wrong with being a bit sad that a part of your world has effectively been removed, but it's not really worth dwelling on it too much because that place will still exist for you so long as your memory does.
That's the only really important bit. And no-one can take it from you.
"Home" is wherever you make it. And eventually there will be another.
Swapping roles with your parents is hard.
All you can do is what you can do. Trying to force yourself to do more immediately might not work too well, just do your best and you'll get better at it over time.
The important thing to realise is that you are essentially a finite resource for dealing with issues, and you need to learn how to manage that.
Which itself is hard as there will be a non-trivial amount of pressure to pick everything up all at once and 'hit the ground running'.
Everyone deals/copes with that pressure differently though.
A useful word to consider here is "Triage".
Sorry, but I haven't experienced this kind of thing. Both the homes I've known all my life are still there occupied by my family. I can't really understand what you are going through, but I am there to talk if you wish.
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Thanks for the insight. Your last line there, about "triage", that definitely gives me something to think about. And with some luck, maybe a path forward for the time being. Going to have to let that stew in the brain for a while.
I guess this is especially hard because of what I know is facing my mom. My grandmother went through dementia as she aged, and a combination of my parents and my mom's two sisters took turns providing all of grandma's care for years. (basically after hurricane Katrina and on from there). Knowing mom worked through all that to care for her mom, and now is facing an even worse version of the same, it just eats at you.
Some years ago (2005 or 2006), I visited my parents for Christmas, as one does. My dad was a minister, so of course I was obligated to go to the Christmas Eve service.
At the beginning of his sermon, he asked for everyone in the congregation who had come home for the holidays to raise their hands. I did not, and my mom elbowed me and said that I should, because I’d come home. To which I replied that I had not, I had never lived in that house.
And in fact that was something he touched on in his sermon--he mentioned visiting his father in Bloomfield Hills, and how that wasn’t ‘home’ to him, because he had never lived there; my grandpa bought that house as a retirement home.
My parents have since retired, and that’s another house where I visit them, but it’s not home to me, and never will be.
Somewhat recently (can’t say how recently, it’s pandemic time and who knows how that works?), my mom sent me a link to pictures of my grandma’s old house, which was up for sale. It was weird seeing how the last owners had modernized it, seeing recognizable rooms with the wrong furniture in them, etc. And then what really messed with my head was the realization that while my parents have moved a lot for job reasons (and by extension, I did too), and while my paternal grandfather moved several times during my dad’s life, my maternal grandmother never did. That house was my Mom’s home from the day she was born until the day her mother passed away and that’s just mind-blowing.