Parenting The Parents

They say when parents grow old, they behave like children. So the children must take care of their parents the way they were taken of as children.

True! Life goes full circle, from childhood to adulthood and then back to childhood as they say.

As parents have to deal with children per the child’s behaviour, so does the child need to cater to their old parents’ behaviour and mood which is not always so easy.

Telling my story, with Ma and Baba, it has been an experience of dealing with different ways and sometimes I have wondered that both have been at extremes. Whether their behaviours were at extremes or whether it is my own lack of flexibility is hard to tell.

Ma used to be the delicate one and Baba is the tough one. And this delicacy was more evident post her work retirement. So to me it came as huge shock when this hardworking lady managing home and work so very efficiently suddenly became so dependent.

When we walked together, and her feet would meet a slight bump on the road, her hand would clasp mine immediately and I would be little angry as to why she was so scared of little things. On our travel from Shillong to Guwahati on those curvy roads, she would as always get the nausea feel and many a times would puke out. After that she would lean on me and I would be like telling her not to panic for ‘small’ things. I look back at these incidents with some tinge of regret as those little support she sought then wouldn’t be something she would ask for ever.

Baba, on the other hand, is very independent by the grace of God and trying to help him usually means inviting wrath. Last year, he went to run some errand in a very hot afternoon and my telling him that he could have gone later led to a mini war. He just doesn’t believe in procrastination.

During the initial days of the covid pandemic, when I was a little worried like the rest, my pleas with him to stay indoors yielded no result and finally I gave up. I realized, a few weeks later, that social isolation was no solution and hence stopped stopping him.

With Ma, it use to very difficult even to ask her to go for a walk, or simply to sit outside and get a bit of the sun. She was so used to the open verandah and the garden back in our Shillong home that she never was much comfortable in the tiny accommodation we had in Delhi, with a small balcony and only some bit of the sun’s rays seeping through. We moved house later but she was gone by then and every bit of the sun’s rays and every shadow in this house often cast a gloom in my heart thinking that she didn’t live to enjoy the little broader space and little more of the sun’s warmth.

Working from home since 2020, I have on so many evenings wanted to have Ma around so we could have that cup of tea together, so that either of us could prepare the tea for the other, which otherwise happened on weekends on which I didn’t have to catch up with a friend or go for a movie. Baba’s evening teas, on the other hand, are no one’s else’s job as he has been preparing his tea for himself and Ma for many years and for himself since Ma left us for another world.

During her later years, many a times Ma would leave the cup or the glass on the table, or not go fetch anything to eat even when she was hungry and I will be pushing her to do, not because I couldn’t but because I wanted her to be agile. Baba, on the other hand washes his tea cups even when we tell him not to. There are days when he goes and puts back the washed utensils in the cabinet just after the maid has left.

Somewhere in my mind I do have the satisfaction that during the first 6 months of the covid when we irrationally like most others, asked the maid not to come, that I could cook for the family. I wish Ma was around because it would not only mean she ate what I cooked, but also my presence in the house would make her feel more at home.

She was usually frail and weak and fevers and coughs used to be frequent that we considered those routine. On some mornings when she had slight fever and I still had to go to the office, those innocent eyes would just stare maybe hoping that I would change my mind. I was very serious about going to work those days even when many of my colleagues would often ‘visit’ once or twice a week. Looking back, I sometimes wish I had got a better internet connection at home, and had the skill to tell my bosses that I was working from home.

In later years of Ma’s life, it was usually the sibling clipping her nails and me or someone doing her hair on odd days, but for Baba it’s difficult to even care for his bruised finger. Last year, he cut his finger while trying to clip his nails and it was bleeding for quite a while. Though I had run and got a Betadine immediately from the neighbourhood chemist, he wouldn’t let me wash his wound or tie a band aid. He just had to do it himself. And while it was hard to tell if it was blood or betadine dripping on the floor from the finger on his right hand, he used his left hand to wipe the floor at the same time. There was no stopping him from doing what I thought wasn’t at all necessary then.

A similar incident happened a week back, when he slipped slightly and hit the wall. A small area on the forehead was cut, but the time between me trying to get the band aid/betadine and the bleeding to stop, although less than ten minutes, seemed like eternity. And he wouldn’t let me check if the wound was minor or deep. I spent the first hours before I slept off in some tension though somewhere I knew the cut wasn’t too deep. I woke up in the middle of the night to check just to ensure there was no further bleeding.

I have always vented out at both — at Ma for giving up totally and not trying; and at Baba for not allowing us to help. As I live through life, and age, may be I will fall in one of their categories — but may be not! May be I will be balanced or may be I will be crazy?