Happy Thanksgiving!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Happy Thanksgiving to all of my wonderful readers who are caring for aging parents and a double blessing to you GenSandwichers who still have children at home and are caring for your parents. I pray God's richest blessings upon you this Thanksgiving.
I've just returned from five days at Mom's, a visit that included both medical appointments and a big family dinner. While everyone helped with the dinner, we still haven't trained the sibs to stay for clean up. Almost everyone suddenly had to leave before we even started dishes and putting away the leftovers. In all fairness, there was a storm coming in and those who had traveled felt the need to get on the road before it hit. I was grateful for my brother who stayed and helped to the very end. I can tell I'm getting older. But the end of the day, and through the next day, I could barely move.
While it was important to give Mom a full Thanksgiving dinner with her whole family, I find that it's getting harder and harder to manage it. I feel conflicted and in a no-win situation. I want to make it nice for Mom -- who knows which holiday will be her last. But I find I resent sibs who consistently make excuses for not pitching in and contributing a fair share. I honestly don't have any more energy than they do, but I guess I'm just stubborn enough to tough through it -- to my detriment.
How do you mange holidays at your house? I'd love some suggestions for honoring Mom while maintaining my own health and well-being in a situation where agreeing on responsibilities in advance hasn't worked.
Labels: aging, family, siblings, Thanksgiving
