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1 Kislev 5763 - November 6, 2002 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Home and Family


Aged Parents
based on an article by M. Chevroni

People often exclaim about a son or a daughter, "He is so good to his parents," or "She is such a wonderful daughter." Unfortunately, it is a fact that an ailing parent can be quite a strain on a family, especially if there are many young children. However, everyone should remember that it is a privilege, a zechus, to look after a parent. The more difficult it may seem at times, the greater the merit. Nevertheless, the fact remains that it can be extremely difficult tending a parent who suffers from senile dementia or Alzheimer's. It can be just as trying to have a healthy, dictatorial parent who lives with a family.

Having an aged parent living in the house has a very positive effect on the children. The parent, who is frequently not completely lucid and may behave in a socially unacceptable way, will let the child help him and coax him to eat or go to sleep etc. Most people have heard the famous story of the wooden bowl. How a man served his father from a wooden bowl because he was afraid the old man would break his good china. When he finally put the father into a home, the small son took the bowl into the attic and said, "I shall save this for when you are old, Daddy. Then I will give it to you."

Many families automatically do the right thing for the parent. Whether a mother suffers from Alzheimer's or has had a stroke, the children have to decide what is to become of her. Should she be looked after by carers in her own home? Should she come to live with one of them? Would she be better off in an old age home? We need much thought and heavenly assistance to make the correct decision for each individual case.

A person who has had a stroke and is physically completely disabled, might be perfectly lucid. To put such a person into an old age home will be very difficult, because a completely disabled person is automatically put into the ward where residents need watching for 24 hours a day. (In Israel they use the term `siyudi,' which does not translate more accurately into English than `supportive care.')

One family sold the mother's home and with the money, put her into an old age home. Her speech was poor and she was paralyzed, but her mind was clear. The children popped in for a few minutes each day and it took them a while to realize that the poor woman was incarcerated with a dozen senile ladies who could not speak intelligently. Nor did the staff do anything for her. This prestigious Home had a quite rapid turnover of residents!

The family now realized they had made a mistake and one of the sons who had a larger apartment than the others took his mother in. They lost a room and the married children could not come to stay anymore, unless a neighbor happened to be away for the weekend. The daughter-in-law was rather housebound now, as she did not want to leave the lady with carers for any length of time, and the younger children had far less of her time. But the whole family benefited by having Bubbie in the house for several years. She would not have survived for all those years had she remained in the Home.

Children accept the grandparent for what s/he is and will love him for what s/he was. The son or daughter might find it difficult to come to terms with the fact that the parent has become like this, and they get impatient. Furthermore, siblings who do not have the privilege of looking after the parent might find themselves criticizing the way the parent is being cared for. They would be well advised to be careful about what they say or do!

A woman lost her husband and the children all wanted to `look after' her. Till then, she had been looking after herself and her ailing husband. One son insisted that she come to stay with him and treated her like royalty, as did his children. He told her she might as well sleep in his house, as it was not good for her to be alone. Her food was provided for her and the efficient daughter-in-law took care of all her other needs.

The woman stayed in bed half the day, as there was nothing to get up for. One daughter who lived nearby saw her mother deteriorating rapidly. She asked the mother to come and stay with her for a while to help out. She asked her to do the shopping and cook the meals for the family while she was at work.

The brother was deeply resentful of his sister's lack of filial respect. He had really wanted to do what was best for his mother and accord her the respect due to her. But the mother was rejuvenated when she went to stay with this daughter and felt she was needed and useful. Unfortunately, there is a definite rift in this family now.

Many girls who get married and move to a different town or even to a different country miss their mothers exceedingly. In spite of telephones and fax machines, Mommy isn't next door. When Miriam's parents decided to move to the town where she lived, the young woman was ecstatic. However, shortly after the move, Miriam's father died. They decided to build a granny flat with its own separate front door and get the mother to live with them.

Mother agreed, and in theory, it should have been an idyllic life. One day, the mother told her amazed daughter that she was planning to remarry and Miriam was rather hurt. She knew that her feelings were unjustified, but she felt that her mother should have consulted her and not have confronted her with a fait accompli. Furthermore, she had thought her mother was so happy in the granny flat, after all the trouble they had gone to, so why did she want to leave? This story had a happy ending because after many years of a happy second marriage, the mother became ill and Miriam was able to look after her with love and devotion, and treated her mother's husband as a respected guest.

One large family had an aging father who had a stroke. They tried to organize a rota to be with him in the hospital, and the main responsibility (no, it is not a `burden' to look after a parent) fell on the one daughter who had no children. The siblings discounted the fact that this woman was head of a school and was very involved with community work. They all assumed that she had `nothing to do' all day while they were busy with their large families.

Stories abound of ill feeling and mutual acrimony when parents become sick. But there are just as many stories of accord and mutual amity among siblings when a parent falls sick and/or is unable to make decisions. We pray regularly and the older we get, with more fervor, "Al tashlicheini l'eis zikno -- Don't discard me in old age." Some people translate this literally as, "Don't throw me out; let me get to old age slowly."

Everyone wants to get old, but nobody wants to be old. May we all age gracefully and remain independent, with full command of our minds and bodies to serve Hashem to the end of our days.

 

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