Dancing through the Sandwich Years

Lillie and Ty at Cliff's.  Then Celebrating 11 w. dear friend Marcia

Here’s to the Sandwich Years.  Not the years when Dad would pack homemade creations in our lunch, but that decade some of us find ourselves in, with super needy kids….and parents.  Many avoid this crazy season by not having kids, or, like my parents did, by having them early in life. By the time their parents needed assistance, my siblings and I were in college, and my parents were free to help Mom’s parents (Dad’s were both dead before he was 20, which presented a different heart ache). Like some of my peers, I had kids later in life, so am smack dab in the middle of a big sticky PB & J mess, during a pandemic to boot.
 
The similarities are haunting. For example, in dressing 5-year old Tyler for Transitional Kindergarten, I make sure he either has elastic-waist shorts or shorts he can hook shut. No buttons or snaps. This is important because if he cannot get his pants off, he will have an accident. Likewise, last time I visited Mom, I had to weed through her wardrobe and take out all slacks that had buttons, zippers or snaps.  I also took out all skirts and dresses. Mom can no longer dress herself, and everything needs to be as easy as possible for the caretakers.
 
Nine-year old Ali is going through a phase whereby she will have giant meltdowns. Several times a day, the slightest thing will set her off: Someone finished the ice cream she wanted. She has to do her homework. Her sister has a playdate and she doesn’t. (The triggers are ENDLESS). I try to help her realize that even in the face of these perceived calamities, she has power. That she CAN make choices, initiate, ask for what she wants. I remind her that she decides how she shows up, how she reacts to whatever happens, what her intention is in any given situation. In the meantime, until she is willing to step in to this responsibility, her tears and screaming and sobbing fill our home.  I shoulder on.

Likewise, my dad has decided that he does not like living in Tucson. I enlist the deacon of the local church to bring him communion, but Dad doesn’t feel up to it so he won’t let him in his apartment. After two weeks of phone calls and emails to five different staff people, I arrange for someone to escort him to the local cribbage game. The staff person calls me two minutes before cribbage begins to let me know that Dad is refusing to leave his apartment. I call Dad and tell him that he IS going to try out cribbage.  We argue. He yells that he hates it here. I say he’s not even trying. He hangs up on me.  I shoulder on, wondering if upping or changing his anti-depressant medication will help.
 
Hygiene is another hill to climb: There is a daily battle of trying to get Tyler to use toothpaste. He hates toothpaste.  All flavors (even bubblegum). Too often, I give in and brush his teeth without it, mostly because I am worn out. His clothes are clean. He is bathed. In good time he will either be ostracized or ridiculed in to needing toothpaste for his breath.

I wonder if the staff remembers to brush Mom’s teeth twice a day. It’s not even something I can ask. When I call her to say hello, she picks up the phone, only to speak in to the ear piece so I cannot hear her nor she me. The other day, when the staff brought her to the phone in the hall and handed it to her properly, she told me that her mother is coming to visit her. I remind her that her mother died two weeks before 9/11 in 2001. She remembers this. Next time, I may just let her anticipate her mother’s visit for any joy it brings.
 
We all know that when coal is under extreme heat and pressure, it morphs into diamonds.  Similarly, I’ve discovered that the pressure I live with caretaking for my parents and kids carves out pockets of wonder, mostly with my kids.  These are moments where I just stop and appreciate being alive, something I didn’t know to do when time and health were abundant.
 
Such a moment comes on Saturday, when we go to a local amusement park called Uncle Cliff’s (no relation to Uncle Walt, whose park makes Cliff look like a distant relative in the boonies). We are here to celebrate Lillie Grace’s 11th birthday. 
 
All three kids and I go on the Tilt-a-Whirl (an egg shaped contraption that yes, tilts and whips while it whirls around and around). It is an adrenaline blast.  Rather than the blur going by, I focus on all three of my kids in the egg, their faces in the sun, mouths open with unabashed laughter.  This is joy. My heart fill up and suddenly, and I'm actually surprised to find that my laughter turns to tears. Happy tears, happily hid behind my sunglasses (because the kids would have been mortified: "I mean, geeze Mom, who cries on a Tilt a Whirl?") 

But I am unexpectedly seized by this perfect moment in time: the shrieks of glee, the faces frozen in smiles, the stomachs sore from laughing: uncontrolled JOY. THIS is what it feels like to be turning 11… This outrageous exuberance in this last official weekend of summer. 

Uncle Cliff’s will close for the season after this weekend. Cold and snow and ice and death will come, but not today (or even next week, thanks to global warming). Today is sunny and we are celebrating and we get to be here. We are happy right now. I will remember this moment of pure bliss years from now. Not because there is a picture of it (who can operate a camera while being whipped around and crying?) but because the pressure from being sandwiched by neediness and fear has forged room to appreciate these small pockets of joy. Moments that I never noticed in the say way because I didn’t know how much I needed them.
 
While working out the next day, the lyrics to a Pink song catch my attention:
If God is a DJ, life is a dance floor
Love is the rhythm, you are the music
 
            I drop my weights and laugh.
 
It occurs to me that my 9-year old daughter tantrums because she is afraid of her song. She doesn’t know what it is yet and so tries to control everything.  My 84-year old mom no longer remembers how to sing. My 87-year old Dad has given up on music because he is angry and depressed, despite the constant beat we keep for him. 
 
I don’t yet know what it’s like to live for 87 years and I’ll never know what it’s like to walk in his shoes. I only know that there is beauty in this dance if we choose to keep seeking it. Yes, Dad, this dance is filled with pain and loneliness, loss and rejection and defeat. But it also houses grace and friendship, joy and creativity and hope.
 
To create music is hard. There’s fear of the unknown, of the work. It requires constant learning, intention, and practice. So much practice. And just when we're in good with our song, the dance venue changes and we've gotta adapt.  

Of course, we also need to find other musicians whose style is compatible with ours.  Because when we forget our song, as happens along the way, we need to listen to those who remember it, can play our melody back to us, and then eventually jam with us.

And the craziest part about the stress and grief of the sandwich years?

They will go away. This period will be devoured by time. And when it is, I will mourn and miss these years.

My dear friend tells me that even though I feel helpless and frustrated when my dad complains, the day will come when I will do anything to hear his voice again, even complaining.  Another friend shares how much she hated the huge messes her kids would leave. Now that they are in college, she rues her clean home.
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So here's to dancing through the sandwich years.  Maestro, play on.