“Over the River and Through the Woods”

Many of you may remember that line from a catchy tune that describes going “to Grandmother’s house over the white and drifting snow.”  And you may be doing that very thing – traveling to get together with family this week.   You may be celebrating Christmas or as are some of my Jewish friends, celebrating Hannukah, but either way, I want to extend best wishes to you and yours.

Personally, Christmas traditions have always been important in our family.  Celebrating Christmas began as children:   we attended services at the church our Dad pastored; on Christmas Eve, Dad read the Christmas story to us from the Bible, we sang carols and Mom made sure we had special treats and gifts in our stockings.   Over the years as we three “kids” became adults and had our own families, we continued to share this special time with our parents.

As Mom and Dad aged, we still celebrated together, but had to make some changes since it became more difficult for them to participate.  This year it will be quite different since neither of our parents are here now.  Mom went home to Heaven in March (Dad had already made his way there in 2008).  We are fortunate, however, that because of our parents, our family has always been close and we plan to continue our family traditions.

You may be traveling to visit with your parents and other family members; and it’s possible that you have older parents that you don’t get to see as often as you would like to.  If so, this time together will give you an opportunity to not only visit with them, but to also evaluate how they’re doing.   I would like to offer you this “mini-list” of things to check for:

1. Physical appearance:  unkempt, poor hygiene, stained or dirty clothes?
2. Home:  cluttered, clothes left on floor, poor housekeeping?
3. Health:  medicines not organized, caps left off bottles; signs of depression, confusion?
4. Nutrition:  not much food, spoiled food in refrigerator?
5. Business aspects:  mail unopened, overdue bills, lack of concern for financial condition?

If you find that your parents are having difficulty with some of these items, gently explore the situation to get an idea of how they see things.   If other immediate family members are visiting as well, you can talk further about the findings with them, but solving the problems will likely take some time.   Obviously, if you determine there is urgency to solving particular problems, decisions will have to be made while you’re there.  More on this topic in the next Blog article.

“Family is like fudge, mostly sweet with a few nuts”   Author unknown