Their Parents’ Keepers

Paula Span:

My father and I were waiting in the director’s office for our tour to begin. With a recent haircut, he looked almost dapper despite the two hearing aids.
I admired the way he’d put together a life since my mother died. He had good friends, played cards several nights a week, faithfully attended services at his synagogue, shopped and cooked for himself. With prescriptions to keep his cholesterol and blood sugar in line, he was relatively healthy.
Yet how long could we be this fortunate? He was 83 then. Sooner or later, my sister and I knew, he’d need more help.
Nobody wants to have to face such questions. Yet we want to do the best we can for the people who did the best they could for us. Maybe this assisted-living place was where Dad would want to be, when the time came.