WordSisters

Category: rite of passage

  • Dogs and Aging Families

    When do people become too old to share their homes with a new dog? How do middle-aged dogs and older people find each other?

    During his annual vet visit in February 2020, Rocky was found to have a heart murmur. Covid locked down our city before we could take him to a doggie cardiologist. That visit never happened because Rocky continued his happy, boisterous life.

    Walk ahead to 2025 when Rocky hit his senior years. Since dogs pack a lot into lives of ten to fifteen years, their aging process is more compact. More dramatic. Medication helped with high blood pressure and easing anxiety due to dementia. A chiropractor supported with home exercises and massage kept his rear legs working. Playing smaller versions of fetch accommodated diminished vision. The adaptation grows.

    Over years, not months, so will ours. For Rocky we’re able to be solid caregivers.  I am not sure that I will be physically capable of supporting another dog through their final years. But how would we walk away from a beloved future family member because we’re all aging? 

    Cats and some rodent pets are not options because of allergies. We’ve done fish and snails when kids were young. None of them check any boxes of what I value in a companion creature. Spending the rest of our lives without a furry friend is hard to accept. Foster care is kind of like babysitting a neighbor’s child now and then. Can be physically demanding.  Entertaining. Heart-warming. Then the baby or child goes home and there’s no one to talk to at midnight when sleep is elusive.

     Maybe there are dog-share programs or lease a pet centers with humane housing for dogs in transition. 

    Maybe the quiet house will grow on us after Rocky’s life is over. 

  • Traditions Evolve

    Great Aunt Wilma was a fixture at our Thanksgiving gatherings during her latter years. She was widowed with no children, so my parents invited her to join us. 

    Elegant with her silver French twist, stylish earrings and deep brown eyes, she preferred to sit with the guys talking sports or politics (back when that was an acceptable topic). We had plenty of help and cooking wasn’t her forté, so she didn’t don an apron and join the women.

    We gathered at my sister’s home in Ohio. After years of hosting, Mom was ready to let her kids handle holiday meals. Until my parents died, our sons, my husband and I traveled from Minnesota to celebrate Thanksgiving with my extended family. My husband’s family had different Thanksgiving traditions, so we didn’t have to choose.

    For years, my husband and I have been the creators of holiday gatherings like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Days before, we’d clean the house, finalize the menu, make an epic shopping trip, check the table linens, plan the flowers, and start prepping dishes that could be made ahead, then cook and clean up on the actual holiday. As our sons got older, they and their wives also prepared key dishes. However, my husband and I were the event managers who were responsible for making the meal go smoothly. We were happy to do it.

    But family traditions evolve. When our sons married, we began sharing them with their wives’ families. Each year we’ve had conversations about which day to hold our Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings. After a bit of trial and error, we determined that Thanksgiving dates could be flexible but Christmas was less so. 

    When grandchildren came on the horizon, my husband and I understood our traditions would change again. We are welcome and important, but as grandparents, we are stepping back to a supporting role for holiday gatherings. 

    The focus has shifted to our granddaughters’ needs. Younger babies might be content to be held during a lengthy Thanksgiving meal, but older babies are not. They get bored and want to play. Ideally, both babies should have a quiet place to nap. This year, that will be at the home of our oldest son and his wife, where both babies can be accommodated. 

    Shortly before the hungry horde descended last Sunday

    Similar things are happening in the larger circle of my Ohio family. My sister no longer hosts a large family dinner at Thanksgiving. Now she visits two of her daughters who live in a nearby state. My brother and his wife will join friends for Thanksgiving since their children are also hours away.

    My bachelor brother, who used to help my sister and me with cooking and cleaning up at our large Thanksgiving gatherings, is now slated to become a guest at a niece or nephew’s Thanksgiving table. When we spoke of the changes, my brother and I joked that now he has become Aunt Wilma. 

  • Reflections from My Great Grandmother’s Rocker

    Some nights sleep is elusive and I’m up earlier than expected—an experience I share with many people my age. At 6:15, I sit in my great grandmother’s rocker reading a book about baby care, since I will be a first-time grandmother in a month or so.

    I try to imagine Anna Kuntz Pleitz and wonder what she was thinking when my grandmother, Helen Wagner Pleitz was pregnant with my mother, Eileen Pleitz Shriner in 1921. I wonder how Anna would view my self-assigned reading.

    Anna lived with her son Frank and daughter-in-law Helen and would have been on hand when they were having children. I speculate that her knowledge of babies and mothering was held in high regard. Anna would have known the secrets of nursing and how to soothe a fussy baby. Like I do. In her day there may have been magazine articles and books about the ‘modern’ methods, but I don’t envision her reading them. She and Helen would have been confident of her skills. 

    Or maybe not. Throughout the 20th century and into this one, each new generation has had their own take on parenting and baby care. So I volunteered to read the Mayo Guide to Your Baby’s First Years along with the What to Expect website to learn what’s new in the 30+ years since I had newborns. I want to be familiar with what my daughter-in-law and son are learning. 

    My mother said my great great uncle, whose name I don’t know, made this beautiful platform rocker and matching footstool for his sister Anna. Making furniture was his trade. Anna’s husband George also made furniture, so perhaps it could be his handiwork. It is in the Eastlake style, so its design and decorations are simpler than ornate Victorian furniture. I don’t know if Anna brought it from Alsace (on the border of France and Germany) when she emigrated from France or if it was made in the U.S. 

    It’s a ladies rocker, which means its frame is smaller and lower. It’s very comfortable and fits me perfectly. More than 100 years later, the rocker doesn’t even squeak. A couple of years ago, I had it reupholstered and replaced the antique-looking gold striped fabric my parents had chosen with an off-white tweed with threads of red and gold and blue. I wanted the rocker to be used and not be a museum piece.

    I silently rock and think of Anna, Helen, and my mother sending their love and wisdom.