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Circle Of Life
Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Mark Des Cotes, I’m being hit hard by allergies this season, and I believe if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I talk about when parents become the child.
May the 4th be with you. Hopefully you understand that, if not, I shake my head at you.
Anyway, I hope you had a great weekend. It was absolutely gorgeous here, but I ended up spending most of it inside packing up my sons things and then moving him into the house he’s renting along with 5 other schoolmates. But, everything went well so I’m not complaining.
You may be wondering why I’m talking to you today instead of Darrell. Well it seems like our good friend came down with a little something that’s playing havoc with his voice so I offered to switch days with him so he can rest his pipes. So you’ll have to wait until Wednesday’s episode to here what Darrell thought of the Avengers movie.
Today’s Fun Fact of the Day: Did you know a study from the University of Chicago suggests that thinking in a foreign language leads to more rational decision making? Hmm, next time I have a tough decision to make I’ll try thinking about it in french.
Here’s What I leaned yesterday.
I want to talk to you today about the circle of life. Now I’m not talking about the Simba, Timon and Pumbaa verson, and don’t worry, I’m not going to break out in song, after all, we’re trying to attract more listeners not scare them away.
What I’m referring to is the circle of life we go through with our parents during our lifetime.
Unlike every other species on the planet, we humans are quite fragile at birth. Without parents, biological or not, taking care of us we wouldn’t survive. At that age we are unable to seek our own food, drink and shelter, the three essentials of survival.
As babies we rely on our parents clothe us, feed us, keep us warm, and keep us out of danger.
As we grow, so do their parental duties. They teach us to speak, they help us to walk, they show us right from wrong.
They also nurture us, they take care of us when we’re sick, when we’re hurt, both emotionally and physically.
As we mature our parents show us the ways of the world, how we should act, how we should behave. What is acceptable and what is not.
They teach us common sense. So many things in life that we view as common sense are actually lessons we learned from our parents. Don’t stick your finger in boiling water. Don’t drink the milk that was accidentally left on the counter over night. Don’t startle a skunk when you see one. These are things we just know not to do. They’re common sense. And yet for them to become common sense we have to have learned them somewhere, and chances are it was from our parents.
As we get older and become adults, the circle of life evolves. The role of parent and child shifts away from a teacher/student relationship to that of friends.
At this stage, we can communicate with them on an equal level. Discussions, of sports, politics, entertainment, and life in general become the norm. Our parents still share their wisdom with us, but we in turn start to share ours with them. We are of different generation and have learned to adapt to a world our parents are slowly loosing touch with.
Then something happens. We have children of our own, and a new circle of life begins. But that doesn’t mean the one we have with our parents is over. No it just means we’re intertwined in both of them. One where we are teachers, and one where we are equals.
Then, as the years go by there comes a twist in the circle of life with our parents as the roles start to reverse. Suddenly, the tasks your parents helped you with when you were young are now the tasks you are helping your parents with. As they get older and become more fragile, you find yourself helping them to walk and get around. As they become more forgetful you find yourself having to remind them of simple daily things. Should they suffer a stroke you may find yourself helping them to talk.
It’s as if you have become the parent and they have become the child. And that’s what I mean by the circle of life.
Here’s what I learned.
Something happened last week that caused me to reflect on this. Those of you in our Facebook group already know this story since I wrote about it there, but I’ll tell it again here for the rest of you.
Last Tuesday around 4:30pm my father called me to say he was leaving for Montreal to see his sister who was being released from the hospital after having suffered a fall a few days earlier. He was going to spend the night at her place in case she needed any help.
Montreal is a 1 hour drive from where we live and my father has made the drive thousands of times so I wasn’t too worried. But I did tell him to call me when he arrived there.
My dad will turn 88 later this month and his memory isn’t what it used to be. Especially when it comes to short term things. I can tell him something and 30 minutes later he might not remember it, but ask him again a few days later and there’s no problem.
So when my dad didn’t call me from Montreal I didn’t think much of it. That was until I received a phone call around 9:30 that evening from a friend of my aunt’s asking if I knew where my dad was.
As it turns out, my dad, using his cell phone, had called the senior’s home where my aunt lives around 6pm and was transferred to her room where her friend picked up.
He told her he had been driving around trying to find the hospital where my aunt was so that he could give her a ride home but he had gotten lost. My aunt’s friend told my dad that his sister was already home and gave him directions to her place.
From where he was it should have taken him 15-20 minutes to get there but it was now three and a half hours later and he was nowhere to be found. She tried calling him back several times on his cell phone but there was no answer. Finally she called me.
Now I was at a lost as to what to do. I used my cell phone to try and call him but there was no answer. There could be several reasons for this. Maybe he was driving and didn’t want to pick up. Or, since my dad is hard of hearing and for some reason doesn’t like to wear his hearing aids, maybe he couldn’t hear the phone in his pocket. Who knows?
Finally we decide to get the police involved and my aunt’s friend offers to call them since she’s in Montreal.
About an hour later I get a phone call from the Montreal Police. He tells me that normally they would wait 24 hours, but because of my dad’s age they’ve decided to open a missing person’s report. He asks me for a description and plate number of my dad’s car and asks me to email him a recent photo which I do.
Another hour or so goes by and I receive another phone call from a different officer. This time they want a physical description. Height, weight, and scars or tattoos and such.
It’s now well past midnight, I’m tired but of course I’m not going to bed. I decide to try to take my mind off of it by doing some work on a client’s project but that doesn’t pan out. Meanwhile I’m calling my dad’s cell phone every 15 minutes or so.
Finally, shortly after 2am I decide to call my dad’s home number. Low and behold he answers. He’s all concerned because I’m calling him in the middle of the night. Relieved that he’s safe, but also angry at the same time I ask him why he’s home.
He tells me that he tried to find the hospital to pick up my aunt but got lost. He then called the senior’s home where she lives and talked to a very nice lady who gave him directions. Now he either didn’t hear her say that his sister was back at home, or his faulty memory didn’t retain that info, because he used her directions to try to find the hospital. He kept driving around and around looking for it, wondering why he kept passing by the senior’s residence. His cell phone’s battery had died so he finally gave up and decided to drive all the way back home.
I told him that his sister and her friend were at home and that they were so worried that they called the police and filed a missing persons report. To which my dad responds, “well that explains it”. He then tells me that on his drive home he was pulled over by the Quebec Provincial Police. He asked if he had done anything wrong but they just said they wanted to make sure he was ok and then let him on his way. Then, shortly after passing the Quebec/Ontario border he was pulled over by the Ontario Provincial Police. The officer called him by name, which my dad thought was strange but once again they just asked if he was ok. He told them yes and they let him go.
This all happened around 11:30pm. He told me he was home and in bed before midnight. So that time I spent awake and worried he was sound asleep. I asked him if he had called his sister and he told me that by the time he got home he thought it was too late and didn’t want to bother her. He was going to call her in the morning.
Now, I can tell you, I had to really refrain from scolding my dad like I would have my son or daughter when they did something wrong. I told him to call his sister and let her know he’s ok. It didn’t matter what time it was. I then hung up the phone and went to bed where it took me another hour or so to fall asleep.
I knew I had a SILY episode in there as soon as the ordeal was over, but it took me a while to figure out what it was. Then it hit me, the circle of life. Where we started life is where we’ll end up. My kids will one day take care of me the same way I took care of them. Which makes me glad I treated them well.
This is what my dad is going through. The child he raised has now become his parent. I remind him to take his pills, I keep track of all his appointments for him, I take care of his bills and I make sure he’s eating well because left to himself he’s eat Pop-Tarts and Cheezees for dinner.
My father is a great man. There is nobody in this world I look up to more than him. I am the person I am today because of his teachings. And yet, the circle of life has now changed our roles.
I was angry after last week’s incident but I got over it quick. My dad didn’t really do anything wrong. He got lost, drove around for a while and eventually decided to come home. Isn’t that what you would hope your child would do? Besides, I’m not exactly sure what the rules are for putting your parent in a time-out.
I’m Mark Des Cotes and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
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