Loving Now

from Jacqueline

I do wish there was an antidote to jet-lag. I have been traveling across broad time-zones since I was twenty years old, and I have tried just about every remedy for jet-lag known to man or woman, and I still suffer. It takes me about five days to feel as if I am out of the fog

It’s a funny old thing, hindsight. I often wonder if I would have made my home here in America if I had truly considered the practicalities of my parents growing old in the country I had left behind. They were only in their mid-sixties when I left, and they were two of the most energetic and vital people I had ever met. In fact, up until a year ago, the only really big worry about their health was my mother’s minor stroke three years ago – but I was traveling back to the UK as often as I could, just to make sure. Maybe things would be easier if it wasn’t just me who had made the decision to “Go West.” My brother also lives here in California, which means my parents have both adult children living 6000 miles away. Frankly, they would not have it any other way – they were of the opinion that America was a good place to be, and if they’d had the chance when they were young, they’d have jumped at it. And we’ve been lucky, to be sure – they’ve visited at least once a year for the past eighteen or so years, which means we’ve seen a fair bit of each other. In fact, one of my mother’s friends pointed out that my parents see me more than she sees her daughter who lives only an hour away. But in the past year both parents have suffered deep emotional pain with the loss of their own siblings and friends, and they have gone through periods of illness themselves. Now each time I visit they seem to be a little more elderly, and it scares the heck out of me.

Many others have written about the problems associated with having elderly parents, so I’ll try not add too much to that particular canon here, but one of the challenges has been in getting my parents to move from their home to something a bit more manageable, and at least closer to a bus route (the over-sixties get free bus travel in the UK). I’d like them to be in one of the local villages, instead of halfway along a narrow country lane, and it would be great if they were closer to the hospital, just in case. But even as my suggestions turned into pleas over the past few years, I was always met with a wall of, “We know what we’re doing.” Then, about five weeks ago, as my dad was clearing away some old undergrowth in the garden, he stepped into a wasps’ nest, and was badly stung. Within hours his leg had become very swollen and he finally went to the emergency room (my mother drove him there – she who was so ill a couple of months ago). By the time I arrived in the UK at the end of October, he could barely walk, and definitely not without a cane. There was an improvement during my visit, so last week I took my parents out for the day, and Dad was able to hobble into a restaurant for lunch. When we arrived home, my parents went into the house while I gathered some shopping from the car. Within seconds I heard my mother shouting, so I ran into the house – to find my father on the floor where he had tripped over, hitting his head against the edge of a shelf on the way down. My mother could not help him to his feet, so she was panicking. Fortunately, I was there. It wasn’t a bad fall, in the grand scheme of things, but it could have been. After I’d tended to the small cut on my father’s forehead and applied ice to a growing bump, we sat down at the kitchen table and had a cup of tea. “So, how many more warnings do you need?” I asked. “What would you have done if ....” They looked at each other. “We would have managed,” they agreed.

So, with all that, you can imagine I was glad to have had a few days away in the middle of the trip! I usually go to visit friends at some point during these pilgrimages back to see my parents, but this time I thought I would treat myself to something a little more, well, European. One of the things I most miss about living in Europe, is the fact that you can get to just about anywhere else in Europe within an hour or two. I was thinking about that back in September, and at the same time saw an article about the love affair between British writers and Venice. Hmmm. I’m a British writer, and by some error of planning, I had never been to Venice. On a whim I hit Expedia.com and within an hour had booked flights and hotel. Four days, three nights – just me zoning out in Italy. Benissimo. Then, with two weeks to go, I thought I would ask my cousin Sue if she’d like to come with me. It took her just 24 hours to rearrange her schedule for those days, and last week, off we went to Venice. I should add that I hadn’t spent any significant time with Sue since we were kids, and she’s the only cousin I had ever had a knock-down - drag-out fight with when we were both about nine. As it happened, Sue really needed the break. She works in the realm of child protection – not for the faint-hearted – so it was good for her to get away. The weather wasn’t fantastic, but it was fine, and we had a blast..

It was while we were on a boat tour of the city that Sue exclaimed, “Oh, I love this. I love being here, all this beauty ... I mean, I love now.”

And I thought about that phrase. It seemed to say so much more than all those books that talk about the “present moment.” The thought of being able to “love now” kept coming back to me in those final few days with my parents before I flew back to California. At a time when the past is a more comfortable default setting for them (especially when I bring up the issue of moving), creating opportunities to love now – and occasions to remember, in time – has become all important.