I turn the key and step inside. Mother is stretched out on the sofa, her eyes closed, her feet resting on Dad’s lap. He looks up with a smile bordering on a smirk, as if I’ve caught them in an act of intimacy and he is proud of it. He continues stroking Mother’s feet. Dad is ninety-four, and Mother is ninety-one. They have been married seventy-one years. Today is a good day: Mother knows his name.
With help from my siblings, two years ago my husband, Donald, and I removed my parents from their home in Indiana. It had become clear they could no longer take care of themselves. They had grown fragile, due in part to Dad’s chronic heart and kidney disease and recurring ministrokes and to Mother’s diabetes and dementia, which had worsened after a serious fall. We’d exhausted all options to keep them in their home. They now needed daily care, and with four of their children living in the same North Carolina town, it made sense to bring them here. But my father, a Marine pilot who served in three wars, does not relinquish control easily, and he refused to move in with any of us. He finally said yes to a condo two doors down from my husband and me. My siblings help out a great deal, but Donald and I are what our friends call the “first responders.” We spend several hours with my parents each day, and at night I place my “firefighter clothes” beside the bed so I can arrive at their door within minutes. These clothes have gotten a lot of use this past year.
