Caring for Aging Parents
Question: My father has had cancer for about two years. Neither of us talk about dying. When a nurse asked him about dying, he said he was afraid he wouldn't go to heaven. I would like to help in some way, but I'm also afraid to talk to him about it and I don't really know what I would say.
Answer: We can't really help anyone -- in any given moment -- more than we are willing to be honest about ourselves. In this instance (in all instances, really), what someone really wants (especially when facing his own mortality) is someone to talk to about their fears without being hammered by a bunch of nonsense from people who know nothing about what they profess. But we have all practiced pretense for so long with each other that virtually no one today can sit down and just listen and then speak from his or her heart about what they just heard. Even more than this... people intuit that we aren't really there for them, but rather to soothe our own guilts... so to what end speak of anything? What your father needs is a friend; and it's not too late to initiate this new relationship with him. No pretense. No past. No posturing. Just sit down and be a living invitation, through your own honesty, to talk to each other like two mortals who have not understood the immediacy of their own imminent mortality. Start there... and see what happens.
(Correspondence)
Question: After the death of my father, we began the arduous task of moving my mother to an assisted living facility. This move was made challenging by family and caregivers who did not approve of the decision. We have worked hard to make mother as familiar as possible with her new home, but the transition is difficult for all of us. We are trying to do everything we can to help her. We truly believe that it is best for her here, getting the care she needs, and she will be more a part of our family now than ever. I am trusting that "all will be well" with God's help.
Answer: It is impossible to satisfy the parts of us that only know themselves through a strained compliance with trying to be all things to all people; it can't be done, nor should it be attempted. In moments like you now face, where these same parts of us look around, trying to satisfy everyone with answers they want... though it is we who must make the hard decisions (and live with the consequences)... the conflict within us is exacerbated. Refuse this kind of doubt. Be true to yourself, honor your intuition, and let what happens as a result teach you what must be learned. The love of truth, of God, does not mean that we won't make mistakes... only that we will be transformed according to our willingness to learn the truth further revealed by our choices.
Question: How do we recognize and accept our responsibility to others? Is there any compromise or sacrifice to self when fulfilling our responsibility to others -- especially our family?
Answer: If you have a responsibility, fulfill it. You must take care of your children. If you have a sick or elderly parent, and there is no one else to help them, you should be a good son or daughter. If, on the other hand, you have a twenty-five-year-old child living at home that you can't say "no" to, this is a completely different story. We must each find out where it is that we accept a life of fear, calling it a necessary compromise, and, on the other hand, how it can be equally true that we won't compromise with others out of some self-image or other fear. So, what do you really want? Truth does not deny anyone its Life based on what responsibilities that person may have. In fact, quite the opposite is true. It is the person who refuses real responsibility that the Truth doesn't see.
Excerpted from Seeker's Guide to Self-Freedom, Page 153
