visiting my parents (lyn)

Jean and I drive up to the Cape where I’m staying until Tuesday.  My mother worries about how I’ll get there, when I’ll get there, what we should eat and when we should eat it.  But about the bigger things, like my dad’s health, she doesn’t seem worried at all.  In fact, she is a remarkable and caring partner to my dad, whose health is diminishing.  For twelve years, my mother was a hospice volunteer.  I can see now why her patients loved her.

My dad needs my mother.  She is his lifeline.  She helps him move, which is becoming increasingly difficult for him.  She forces him to exercise, though he’d prefer not to.  She makes sure he eats, even when he’d rather skip a meal.  She makes him laugh when he becomes too serious.  She doesn’t get alarmed when he calls for her to come help him immediately.  My mother, who goes into a near-coma if it snows and she has to drive, is the model of serenity.   She loves my father very much, and she easily accepts the new role she has been cast in.

It is sad to see my father in such declining health and mobility. 

Jean and I arrive in time for lunch.  Before sitting down to eat, my sister takes a picture of me with my parents.

My mom has made blintzes, which we have with bagels, cream cheese and lox.  After lunch and cleanup, Jean and I take a drive downtown where we try to spend money at Maxwell’s.  This is usually pretty easy, but today it is not.  Despite having a $200 credit, I cannot find one thing to spend it on.  I guess I'll just have to wait until summer.

Dinner is a Jean-special.  My sister, the gourmet cook of the family, has made and brought chocolate chip cookies, chicken parmigian, and marinated beets.  This is augmented with a salad and a berry pie from Dana’s for dessert.  It is an excellent, high-point meal.  Any attempt to lose three pounds has been put on hold until I get back to New York.  And by then, it could be four or five.