I was meeting with a couple about joining the church and baptizing their baby when my cell phone rang. Not just once, but it rang again a few minutes later, each time registering a fresh voicemail message. Few people beyond my family have that number, so I glanced at it. My parents’ number. “Excuse me for a moment, I need to check this message.” As I listened to the message, an unfamiliar voice began with the words that every adult child dreads hearing, “This is a nurse, calling from your parents’ apartment.”
The crisis was not as bad as was feared and has mostly passed. And there have been blessings out of last night’s phone call: wonderful understanding from the couple whose meeting with me was cut short, an unexpected day with my parents, and an increase in outside care that will help them both maintain their health.
Aging. No matter our age, we are all doing it. Every age and stage brings its own challenges, its own aches and pains, its own joys. Sometimes the pains we bear are our own, sometimes they are the pains of those we love. Sometimes we are the ones who serve, sometimes we are the ones who are served. Often, it seems, we are all of those things at once.
