Four Phrases

            For several years, I have watched the aging process dramatically change my 95 year old parents.  My mother is now confined to a wheel chair and suffers from increasingly severe dementia.  She can be counted on at least a couple of times a days to be inquiring where she can buy train tickets to Salem, the town outside of Boston where she grew up.  She would like to go there with my Dad to see how much her childhood home has changed and whether anyone she knows still lives there.  She used to want to take a road trip with him but now figures that the train is a better option.

            My father dislocated his hip recently and seldom uses his walker anymore.  He is legally blind and has a difficult time remembering and processing information.  Sometimes he gets tired of listening to my mother’s rambling memories, but he still loves her dearly.  He takes seriously those vows spoken over 70 years ago – “ in sickness and in health.”

            He wondered aloud to me recently whether one day the two of them might have beds that could be pushed together at night rather than be separated by the privacy wall currently in their room.  He would really like a double bed – but at least not feel like a latter day Pyramus and Thisbe.  Both of them are hard of hearing and cannot afford hearing aids. 

            Because of all those physical and cognitive challenges, my parents recently moved to a nursing home, leaving the assisted living facility that had been their community and support system for the previous seven years.  We think of a nursing home as one of the last stops along the way to the end of life here on earth – and for many of our elderly, it is. 

            For those women and men whose physicians clearly see death coming, there is hospice care.  Whether one lives at home or in a nursing care facility, hospice works with both the one who is dying and with his or her family to affirm and in an appropriate way embrace the inevitable passing.  However, for those elderly whose decline is at an infinitesimally slow rate, hospice never becomes a way station on the journey. 

            As an adult child and caregiver, I recognize that – hospice or no – 95 years is signal enough that life on earth is drawing to a close – and consequently, there are things that should be said and done.  In my parents’ case, their affairs appear to be in order.  Their wills are up-to-date, and their advanced directives are in place.  They want to die quietly and with dignity.  They want to be cremated with little fanfare – though I do not know where their ashes are to be flung to the four winds.

            Because the things to be done are mostly taken care of, I am left with the things to be said, of which the most important, I believe, are four phrases.  These phrases are simple ones but add a deeply spiritual aspect to a relationship with the elder to which we are bound.  Of course, life would be far richer if these phrases were spoken frequently and sincerely before the end.  However, they seldom are.  We seem to save them until the last moment or final days.

            FORGIVE ME – Forgive me my anger, my resentment, the grudge I have held all these years (so many years, in fact, that I am no longer sure what it was all about in the first place).  Forgive me the times I did not listen, I turned away, I had better things to do than spend time with you.  Forgive me my indiscretions, my faithlessness, my lack of support.  Forgive me…..

           

            I FORGIVE YOU – I forgive you for the times you were angry at me, gave me the silent treatment, pretended you did not see me.  I forgive you for the love you withheld, the joy in me you squelched, my tears you could so easily bring forth.  I forgive you for all the times you doubted me, when you did not treat me tenderly, when your pride led us to places we never should have gone.  I forgive you…..

            I LOVE YOU – I love you for your kindness, your energy, your love of life.  I love you for your body, the softness of your skin, those beautiful eyes always wide with wonder.  I love you for the sound of your voice, your laughter, the way you could always bring out the best in me.  I love you…..

            THANK YOU – Thank you for being my mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, spouse, friend.  Thank you for believing in me when no one else did, for encouraging me to follow my dreams, for sharing those dreams with me.  Thank you for loving me, for nurturing me, for all you have given me.  Thank you for just being you.  Thank you…..

            These four phrases, when spoken with honesty and a deep and abiding trust, make the final leg of a life journey so rewarding, so complete.  Surely they are a gift to be both freely given and humbly received.