The first time I really noticed that my parents were getting older was at Heathrow Airport a few years ago. We were changing planes and our flight to the U.S. was leaving from a gate at the far end of the terminal. As we were hurrying down the moving sidewalk, I saw that my mother had a slight limp that I hadn’t seen when she walked at a normal speed. That subtle frailty, that barely perceptible lessening of mobility caused me to tear up unexpectedly. After all, my mother had been a dancer and a swimmer. She’d always looked and seemed much younger than her age. But she was born in 1938 and though time has been as good to her as it could be to anyone, it ticks nonetheless. Fear.
Pops, on the other hand, hates wearing his hearing aid. He’d been a band director and music teacher for thirty years, following at least eight years of participation in high school and college bands. He was destined to be hard of hearing. It often means doing something I hate: repeating myself. Annoyance.
Traveling with older parents requires patience. Obviously, they don’t move as fast or react as quickly as they could in the past. They know what they’re willing to try and may protest any horizon broadening that they think is a bit too broad. We’re three adults asserting and negotiating our personalities and priorities through the filter of a family hierarchy. We irk each other, even as we love each other, specifically because we operate at different speeds.
But the patience required isn’t just with my parents. It’s with myself. It’s with the world.
Walking around cities in Europe, I watched helplessly as drivers of cars, trucks, and mopeds sped dangerously close to narrow sidewalks where my parents were walking ahead of me single-file. In Manhattan, I watched people speed-walk around them, huffing their impatience even as we were generally out of the heavy flow of foot traffic (I am almost certain that these impertinents were not native New Yorkers). I witnessed my parents, outside of the relatively benign environment of my suburban hometown in the South, being buffeted by the frantic, aggressive energy of the city. It was angering, disappointing, and—most of all—exhausting. I couldn’t make people hold doors open for them. I couldn’t make people be considerate or polite. I couldn’t protect them.
I realized, then, that my responsibility isn’t to protect them from life. They’re resilient, intelligent, capable people who have triumphed with pluck and personality for three-quarters of a century. They know how to pivot. They know when to call it a night. My responsibility is to give them what they have given me for four decades: love and the faith that we’ll all be all right.
Traveling with my parents abroad is a privilege. Traveling with my parents is an honor. Traveling is a blessing. I’m grateful that I have been able to do all three.
What have you learned while traveling with older relatives? What have you learned while getting to know older relatives as an adult?
:), I share your sentiments. The weird thing is that others don’t think they will get older based on the way they act…
Inspired to write a post now about how to travel with your aging parents :).
I am an older parent, who occasionally travels with my daughter. We found that the key to our survival together on a trip was to split up periodically. We both have different interests. I have traveled a lot more than she has but at this stage of my life, I lack her endurance. Most of my travels have been solo and they were some of the best trips of my life but I find it better to travel with someone or in a group these days, I guess because I am feeling the fragility and vulnerability of my years.
If I had any wisdom to impart on this topic, it would be to pack a good deal of patience and tolerance in your suitcase when you travel with your kids who are not kids anymore. Respect them as adults and hopefully they will reciprocate.