There are hard decisions that come along in life. Decisions few are prepared for and no one is ever eager to engage. Aging parents are the biggie of the biggie and no two situations are the same . . . and yet they are all the same. Your parents (and certainly mine) need new bodies and new minds and that is why they (and us) need Jesus, because that is the only way that any of us are ever going to experience that wonderful necessary thing. Unfortunately, from a humanistic point of view, you have die in order to get these wonderful gifts.
In the West we don't have a strong tradition any longer of caring for our parents and grandparents in their last years. The trend is to place them in homes, assisted living facilities, nursing homes and whatevers, so that all the unpleasantness of diminished capacity, declining minds and bodies, the lost of normal adult functions, are handled by others. It is sold to us as being better for THEM. Marketing has been very successful. Here in the East though, there are different expectations, and different economic realities and relational realities. Few can or would consider such solutions. Yes we have old folks homes, but most of those there are truly alone in the world and they have no one alive to care for them and they cannot care for themselves.
The problem is that my wife and I are caught between the two cultures. We WANT to care for our parents, and they NEED us to do so, but yet we struggle to find a way to continue working while doing so. I mean we have 15 years to go before we qualify for retirement and have the freedom (in the Western mindset) to care for them. This is not a theoretical dilemma. This is real and current and the pressure builds for action to take place and soon. So what honors them and God most? We are probably too close to the situation to have any objectivity at all. What do you plan to do and how do you plan to accomplish it?
Me? I see that I have waited far too long to do anything other than react. All the initiative has been taken away by delay and denial. Learn from my misstep.
