Learning From Our Aging Parents

Three weeks ago my wife, Debbie, got a call that all of us in middle age dread. Her mother had fallen down 17 steps, straight into the basement. She doesn’t see well, and she got confused. She thought she was stepping from the hallway into her bedroom. Instead, her foot met the air, and she tumbled all the way down.

She lives with my sister-in-law back in West Virginia. She is 89 years old. She barely weighs 100 pounds. She broke her C2 vertebrae. She also broke every single rib on one side. The ambulance took her to Low Moor in Virginia. From there, they transported her to Salem, Virginia to a hospital better equipped for dealing with serious injuries like hers.

Miraculously, she has survived. She is in rehabilitation in Clifton Forge, for how long we do not know. The fear we all live with is pneumonia which can happen in these cases due to the elderly patient being unable to breathe as deeply as they need to due to pain.

In 2022, Debbie lost her father. In 2023, I lost my mother. Also in 2023, our first grandchild was born. She is the light of our life. And this is the strange odyssey of middle age. So many things are spectacular. So many other things are terrifying. And in our own bodies, the “Check Engine” light has just come on.

We haven’t lived in West Virginia since 1997. Debbie’s mother has lived in White Sulphur Springs her entire life. We offered for her to move to Ohio and live with us, but the thought of being so far from the dirt where she was raised was not a welcome one. Because of this, my sister-in-law moved her in with them.

My own father lives a block away from my sister but two and a half hours from us. So we live four hours from one, 2.5 from the other. And we worry from afar. And get together when we can. Just yesterday my sister and father came to our town to see a theater production our daughter was directing. We were able to share lunch.

Proverbs says that gray hair is a crown of glory. My crown of glory started forming when I was 28. The book of Ruth says that God will raise us to life and sustain us in old age. Watching my parents age has caused me to think alot about my own progression in life. I do a lot of math:

“Let’s see. I’m 53. Mom was 79. If I progress similarly, I have 26 years. Wow. 26 years. Let’s see, I got married 31 years ago….” and on and on I go with the math, as John Mayer sang, “I play the numbers game to find a way to say that life has just begun.”

Dealing with aging parents is about literally dealing with them, but it is also the psychological grappling with our own aging process. It’s when we take stock of where our life is, of how and whether we are progressing in the direction and at the pace that we thought we would.

Back to John Mayer’s song, “Stop This Train”:

Don't know how else to say it
Don't wanna see my parents go
One generation's length away
From fighting life out on my own

So here I am, primarily known for writing songs and stories about Appalachia, talking about the aging and passing of our parents, and quoting John Mayer like some kind of crazy person binging a Taylor Swift playlist or something.

I heard a comedian once say that men don’t really care what’s on TV. They only care what else in on TV. And this is pretty descriptive of the faulty mindset of my own life. I’ve always found joy in thinking about what’s next more than what is.

But the ancient Scripture speaks peace into this season of my own life. Psalm 92:14 says, "They will still yield fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap and very green". During those rare times when I get to sit alone with Dad for a longer period of time, I’m always surprised how much wisdom is still there waiting to be dispersed. Just this morning he sang and preached in a church service in western Ohio. He is 82.

So as I go along my own journey, may I always honor my parents and their legacy, do work that glorifies God, and steward my own body in a way that does not short circuit God’s purposes for my life. All so that my days will be long upon the earth and that God may be glorified in each of those days.