Of Venn Diagrams and Spirographs

I woke up thinking of Venn diagrams and Spirographs this morning. I'm not sure whose pencil nub is turning all these gears, but I do know that the intersections where my life meets the larger world are always interesting places to gather and learn things.

"Interesting," though, as the old Chinese saying goes, isn't always a shiny, happy thing.

And so, these days, I am walking through the miry muck of my mom's aging life, trying to learn this new vocabulary, wishing I had a GPS to set me straight.

I was not a particularly good parent of a newborn. I hope that I will be a better child to an aging parent who, in many ways, offers similar challenges. Mostly, what I need is a heaping helping of kindness, wrapped in a package of perpetual patience.

While medical procedures and prescriptions may very well improve my mother's life, it is kindness that will save us all.

I am just learning all of the forms that this particular kindness takes. As my own circle intersects the "old age" circle, I am surprised--as always--to discover a previously-unknown world of services geared strictly towards the end phases of one's life. Yes, there is money to be made in this intersection--heaping helpings of it, I suppose. But, if you look hard enough, endless kindness resides there, too.

From local aging agencies operating on a dime to luxurious retirement homes with large deer statues in their lawns, aging is a thriving industry in this country. Ironic, considering the waning nature of its clients.

I don't know how my siblings and I will do as we wend our ways through all of this. I do believe that kindness and concern are fueling us, though. We ache as we watch our mom struggle to rise from a chair. We share quick, concerned glances as misfired synapses tumble down her shoulders. And we convince ourselves that more phones, more food, more family time will ease this transition.

Mostly, though, we lean heavily on kindness, counting on it to soften the hard edges of too little sleep or of important paperwork lost in a pile.

I have no idea what next month will look like for my mom and Dick. But I do know that I wish to see the hamster wheel go away, the one that spins round and round, yet never moving, while everyone pants to catch his or her breath.

There is no meaningful movement on that wheel, no intersection where it meets up with kindness or fresh ideas.

Ah, but the still-larger wheels turn, as another circle--as yet unseen--slowly makes its way towards us. I, for one, am holding my breath.