Sunday, January 18, 2009

Sandwich generation and the truth....


It's been nearly a year and a half since my mother passed on.


Now my father is heading there.


Many of you are sandwich generation people like I am, meaning that you are taking care of your children and your parents..."sandwiched" in between the responsibilities...and it's all one big learning curve.


With raising children you learn terms like Dip/Tet vaccine and Star Wars Clone Wars, late tuition fee penalty. With your parents, it's terms like Living Will, Medicare Part D and what's a chest tube?


It jumbles around in your brain along with that Starbucks Gingersnap Latte and the latest email you received from the Giant Eagle Fuel Perks Mall and omigod is tax time that close?


How do we keep it straight and make the right decisions?


Are we doing this right? Is anyone going to figure out that we are just winging it? Is anyone going to see how scared we are?


No...we save that reveal for the quiet moment on the steps of the porch when we sit with the dog and make sure the Big Dipper is still out there in the night sky.


Tell the dog all about it...he/she won't judge you, or question your decisions...no way, that dog of yours will just sit there, staring at the stars too , wondering if the Milky Way is where Milk Bones come from.


By the way, if you have a cat, no such luck. They will not only judge you, they will view you as the inferior food-walla you are.


Stick with the dog.



Then after you bring the dog inside and eye up that Dove bar in the freezer, take comfort in the fact that your parents were once in this place, and one day your kids will be too, and nobody,

NOBODY, will ever feel they did it right.




....


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