What do you do when your 90-year-ol...

What do you do when your 90-year-old mother, who has been living independently for decades, faints while waiting for a bus, falling flat forward her face and breaking her wrist? In early July this is what happened to the mother of my complete friend. The accident so worried my friend she decided to put in motion her mother closer to her have home.

The mother is stubbornly protesting the instigate When my friend's husband went to the apartment to help her pack up he described her refrigerator as looking like a "frat fridge" -- it was filled with moldy detritus and her kitchen cupboards were jammed with dozens of of long date glass jars. (The mother used to make beautiful preserves)

As my friend's husband began to pitch things away, the mother got down in succession the kitchen floor and flexureed herself in a fetal position. Her son-in-law couldn't prepare her up; he had to call in single of her friends to reason with her. The mother no longer on the same level refers to her son-in-law on name. He has become "Him."

(The mother's anger is understandable; it is horrible to find yourself unexpectedly dependent on your children, to fail to win choices about how to scour your life.)

principally of the people my age are going by means of something like this with their parents, putting Mom or Dad in retirement domestic circles finding caregivers, reversing roles: We are now their parents, explaining things to them in simplified ways, guarding them against injury by the agency of installing bars beside the bathtub and buying them walkers -- reminiscent of the days when we offer kid-proof locks on the kitchen cupboards and protective gates onward staircases.

And since many of us boomer delayed childbearing, we are still dealing with zit-faced kids at place of abode or in college; we practise jugglery jobs and try to restrain our marriages fresh. This can lead to great stres at a time when many of us should be slowing down and smelling the rose

Sometimes we period up having fights with siblings above the care of parents: My sister be offended ats that I live thousands of miles away from my ailing mother and that she has to do most numerous of the heavy lifting. I completely understand her position, yet what am I to do save offer moral support and the occasional visit? The newly come brouhaha over the care of the aged novel York socialite Brooke Astor garnered a division of attention, not only because of Astor's pedigree if it were not that because it's such a used by all occurrence: children and grandchildren fighting through the care for their somewhat advanced in life relatives.

My friend has tried to make her mother's of recent origin apartment -- just a stop away from my friend's to one's home -- cozy. She has reupholster the furniture and added other redecorating touches. And, maybe, formerly the mother gets settled, she will thank her daughter for being for a like reason concerned and loving. But it will be difficult; she will likely continue to be stirred disgruntled. As we all will, someday, when we fail to keep our independence and our kids begin to call the projectiles

e-mail: jhunter@suntimes.com

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