There have been a few humbling experiences in my short life: Appendicitis, deaths of my best friends, rebelling and realizing the hurt and pain I have the potential to cause. All these were learning experiences-I felt physical pain, and realized what pain really meant. I felt emotional pain, and realized what loss really meant. And I felt the disappointment from those I hurt as well as myself and realized what responsibility really meant.
But in the past few weeks, I have had another humbling experience.
On August 5th, when my mom came back from Pakistan, she brought back my paternal grandmother. She was not being taken care of by her children there, and we hoped to provide a better life and standard of living here. Her son the Air Force Air Chief, her youngest daughter, the wife of an Army doctor, and her eldest daughter, the wife of the former Air Force Air Chief were all incompetent, ungrateful, and unaccomodating to their aging mother. So it was left to my father and mother to see how they could make the last years of her life comfortable by bringing her to America, a foreign country. But bring her we did. We knew what this required of us: time spent with her just doing nothing, talking to her in our mother tongue, having to repeat everything because she was losing her hearing, having to come immediately at every call no matter what, occasionally massaging her legs when her old bones ached. These were all things we were ready to do, me especially because I knew that I would have to be in charge of her. “She’s your responsibility,” said my dad before leaving for Pittsburgh. He wouldn’t be here while he was away during the week, and only home on weekends. So he left the care of my grandmother up to me, knowing my mom had other things to worry about: cooking, cleaning, soccer mom-ing, etc. So I took it in stride. No matter how frustrated I got-being called to change the channel while studying for an ass-kicker of a Orgo test, having to repeat things OVER and OVER and OVER, having to translate every conversation from English to Urdu whether it pertained to her or not-I’ve done it all. And I do it gladly, because she has seen things that I have not. She has experienced things I have not. She has lived through so much more, and I have not. Is it so much to ask that we make her last years as comfortable as she would like? Or the way she would like?
So when I was asked to “give her her pain medication,” I thought ‘Hey no sweat.’ I didn’t realize that it meant applying pain-relieving ointment to her lower back and basically anywhere else she hurt. Every night for the last 3 weeks, I have applied the ointment before she goes to bed. Every night, I see the future. I see what will become of us all when we get old. What will become of ME.
I hate to think that I may be the kind of grandmother that can no longer climb stairs at 80, that can’t sit up for longer than an hour or two, that will need a hearing aid just to watch TV. Every night, when I smear the pain meds on her back, I wonder if she feels embarassed that her granddaughter has to see her like this. Or wistful for the days of her youth? I realize that we will go through stages in our life, and not think about the fact that we are getting old, because each new stage will bring new surprises and experiences. But at some point, we will be old and brittle, and realize that life has no where to go now. There is no graduation to look forward to, or wedding, or kids, or their graduations and weddings. Life is done and over with….
To realize that our youth and the opportunities we have, the doors that are open to us…to realize that we will not have these forever is a hugely humbling experience. These people too were once young and silly and reckless and hopeful-all ready to grow up. Now they are-but now its also our turn… What are we going to do with our choices? What are we doing with our future to ensure that our children grow up loving and caring people so that they will repay us? I do not fear getting old, because it is a natural part of life. But I fear what COMES with getting old. I would love to be the kind of grandmother who, at 90, is still throwing a baseball around with her grandchildren…But who knows what the future holds for sure? Nothing is for certain except the here and now. The decisions of today will decide how we life out our lives, and spend our old age…Theyll decide the kind of kids we raise, the path our retirements will take, and the condition we’ll be in when we get old, and eventually die… It’s like I’ve heard desi people joke: Take good care of your kids…they ARE your retirement plan….
Quote(s) of the Day/Blog:
“Everybody wants to get old, but nobody wants to be old.”
-Johan Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet/Novelist)
“Learning acquired in y outh arrests the evil of old age; and if you understand that old age has wisdom for its food, you will so conduct yourself in youth that your old age will not lack for nourishment.”
-Leonardo Da Vinci
