My parents arrived on Monday for a ten day visit. My hours are no longer my own. My camera's shutter doesn't snap as often. My blog posts are delayed. It's not as though we are running around town visiting tourist attractions or trying to get a glimpse of a celebrity. My mother and father are 82 and 79, respectively, and although relatively healthy their limitations are becoming more pronounced. My father's mobility is impaired from chronic knee and joint pain. His short term memory seems to evaporate like steam in a shower. This is the first time I've encountered my mother's hearing loss. My father's has been questionable for some time, even as an adolescent I recall his ability to tune us out. I'm never quite sure what he hears or chooses not to hear. During breakfast this morning I got up to go to the bathroom which is down a hallway past the kitchen. My mother, at the dining room table, kept talking to me. Evidently, she didn't hear me say, "I"m going to pee". My father, who was in the kitchen, kept telling my mother I was in the bathroom, but she couldn't hear him. So from the bathroom my mother's voice marched on with her tale, her cadence drowned by my father's occasional frustrated grunt, "she's in the bathroom". I sat on the toilet with my head in hands and chose to laugh. A few hours later, in the living room, my father's out of the blue comment broke the silence. "I know why people take drugs", he said not taking his eyes off of his sketch pad. My mother looked at him quizzically. "Because of the pain." His next comment was about the characteristics of the pen he was sketching with. Observations equally weighted from the mind of an 82 year old.
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