Improving Your Parents

Bob Morris used to push his old father to walk more. On a visit to NY, his dad struggled to walk up a a broken escalator out of the subway.

Strange as it sounds, I felt pleased he had gotten a good workout. In the year that followed, as his heart grew weaker, I kept at him to walk with me. Worn out after a good life, he’d refuse, and I’d be angry. What he really needed was more affection, not exercise. Yet I kept trying to impose my will on both my parents right to the end. How dare they become so old?

I think about them now, when I go out walking with such determination it’s almost as if I’m trying to walk away from myself. I’ve heard that you’re only free to become the adult you have always meant to be when both your parents are gone. But often I just wish I could have been someone else when they were alive.

I loved this essay, because the broken subway escalator is such a city thing. It's part of the hell/heaven experience of Manhattan living. It also reminded me of my own misplaced self-improvement plans for my grandmother and how much I miss her every day.

Comments

[Amy P]

Yowzers. My very active 86-year-old grandpa recently had his second hip surgery (the first one having been 16 years earlier), and a leg bone broke in the middle of the surgery, causing hours of extra surgery and lots of blood loss. The surgeon said that his hip bone was as thin as an egg-shell and could have snapped at any point. In light of that, I think it is very ill-advised to activate sedentary octogenarians--unless you're acting under the advice of a doctor and physical therapist.