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Little ones prep us for parenting our elders

By BRIDGET GRUMET Mommy Track
Published April 30, 2007

Toby kept waking up every few hours. He wandered around the hotel room, fidgeted with the TV cabinet door and kept pleading, "Let me out."

My husband, Wayne, was supremely patient, even as the night wore on and sleep became scarce. He offered pillows and cold water and calm reassurances. I couldn't help but think that his experiences with little Toby had prepared him for big Toby.

Little Toby, our 18-month-old son, was named after big Toby, my husband's grandfather, who was nearly 91 and battling leukemia. The cancer had invaded the bones of his lower back, making it difficult to sit and excruciating to lie down. Prescription narcotics took the edge off the pain but made him disoriented and irritable. Antianxiety meds could quell the side effects but made him fall asleep mid conversation.

If you're looking for the happy column on my scrappy toddler, this isn't it. This is a story about the other end of life, the eventuality we all try not to think about until it's in the hotel bed next to us.

We had been called two Saturdays ago to come to Fort Lauderdale for big Toby. His second wife, who has health problems of her own, decided she could no longer live with him. She owned the condo, so Toby would have to go.

By the time we drove down, all of big Toby's things had been packed. A shrinking man with a lumbering gait and the telltale bruises of leukemia got into the front seat, thinking he was just going away for a visit. His life's possessions - clothes, financial records and neatly typed sheets of his favorite jokes - were packed into our trunk.

Once in the hotel room, he couldn't get comfortable. He kept wondering what had happened to his keys, which had been confiscated by his wife's family. He didn't understand why the hotel door was closed and why the TV cabinet door didn't lead anywhere. He was restless and claustrophobic.

My husband got Toby settled into an armchair with a pillow propped behind his back. Wayne familiarized himself with the Ziploc bag full of prescriptions, and judiciously doled out the right pills. He slept for an hour or two at a time, until one of us heard Toby stirring again.

Little Toby slept through the night remarkably well, as he has for the past year. But it's not that long ago that we awoke to his midnight cries and rushed to offer nourishment, cuddles and a clean diaper. At first we were intimidated, even exhausted by his endless demands. Then we reminded ourselves we were handling a vulnerable creature, and we developed the confidence that we could comfort him.

I recognized that tenderness and resolve in Wayne as he cared for big Toby that night.

I realized God makes us parents so we can learn how to someday care for our own parents and grandparents.

Our original plan was to drive big Toby back to our home, where he would stay until we could line up his own place at an assisted living facility (a task that was sure to take time as we sorted out his benefits and figured out how to pay for everything).

But once we saw how much pain he was in, we realized a 51/2-hour road trip with a temperamental toddler and an indefinite stay on our futon would just compound his discomfort.

The next morning we got in touch with the kind folks at Hospice by the Sea, which had provided some in-home care for Toby before his wife kicked him out. They graciously agreed to let Toby stay in one of their facilities for a week, until we could line up a place for him and fly him to our area.

Though still uncomfortable, still unclear on why he couldn't go home, Toby set about charming the nurses. Propped on a waiting room couch and covered in thin white blankets, he began telling a story about a man who was dying in the hospital. The nurses leaned in intently, as if Toby was talking about someone important to him.

The man in the story is on his deathbed, and he insists on confessing to his wife that he's cheated on her. And not just with anyone, but with her sister, and her cousin and one of her closest friends.

The wife takes his hand and tells him, "I know, dear. That's why I poisoned you."

That was the last flicker we saw of the old Toby.

We drove home that Sunday evening, exhausted but grateful for the good folks at the hospice. The next day we began dealing with Social Security and Medicare and the banks and the government pension service, but by Wednesday, the nurses told us Toby was rapidly declining. He would be in hospice to stay.

Old, sick, booted from his home and stripped of the social scene he so loved in his retirement community, Toby was letting go.

Which brings us to the other lesson of parenthood: Learning when it's time for you to let go, too.

* * *

Toby Sakowitz

July 1, 1916 - April 21, 2007

[Last modified April 29, 2007, 22:15:35]