Navigating change is everyone’s challenge, but for me it’s different
The picture pleased me, and then I was shocked to realize how recently it was taken.
There we were, smiling for the camera at the end of a lovely day. We had gone to Evelyn’s cousin’s house in the country for a get-together with him, his wife, and Evelyn’s brother and his wife. It was hot outside, but we were comfortable on his large, shaded patio. We all brought food, and we ate well.
I had hoped we’d be able to stay a couple hours before Evelyn became restless and we needed to leave. But she was relaxed. She participated in the conversation, although in a limited way, and she seemed to enjoy it. We stayed till after 5:00.
I had trouble believing what Facebook was telling me, that this happened just one year ago. There’s no way Evelyn could enjoy such an afternoon today. The picture brought home to me how much things have changed in just one year.
A fact of life
Change is a fact of life for everyone, of course, especially in our technological age. Some seem to enjoy change. Some advocate for it. I think back to how I myself once waved the banner for change. “All change is not growth,” I remember saying in front of audiences 40 years ago. “But all growth is change. You’ll never make progress if you resist change.”
But there seems to be something inborn in most of us that makes us cling to the way things were. It’s not all bad; a willingness to stick with norms and traditions is one foundation of an orderly society. We can’t have people deciding stoplights are old-fashioned so let’s say red means go. We can’t survive with a boss who redirects the company’s strategy every other week.
Given our comfort with what we expect, we may rebel when things are different. We don’t like it when our grocery moves the soup to the coffee shelf and the coffee to the cereal aisle. We complain when the school sends our kids’ bus at a different time. We stop going to a restaurant that removes our favorite dish from their menu.
And when it comes to matters more significant, issues of life and death, the pattern continues.
The problem with aging
This is the problem with aging. Everything’s changing for those past 60, and most must fight not to cling to the past. The changes seem to surprise us. “I just can’t work in the yard the way I used to,” we comment over coffee. “I hated to move, but I just can’t navigate steps anymore,” we explain to a friend.
And some of the more serious, frightening, threatening changes we just endure in secret. It’s one thing when knees weaken or our eyeglasses must keep getting stronger. It’s another when our heart or stomach or lungs begin to fail.
And when a doctor announces a possibly terminal diagnosis, we fight for and cling to life. Life is all we’ve ever known, after all. The change from life to death is often resisted and seldom witnessed without emotion.
The changes, and then the next changes
All of which brings me back to that Facebook memory I mentioned above. I know Evelyn is suffering from two progressive diseases. I tell myself I’ve accepted the changes to her condition and our life together, but when the changes change again, I’m almost always surprised.
I learn what we must do to navigate meals, but later must stop her from tasting the playing pieces in a game I’ve opened. She’s too sleepy to keep her head up several afternoons, and then the next week we must cope with her frenetic activity and her unwillingness (inability?) to stay seated in her wheelchair. In years past she would ask her aide when I was getting home. Now we must prompt her to notice when I come for a visit—and pay attention when I leave.
I always tell myself, “Hmm . . . so that’s how things are now. OK.” But my instinct to expect things to stay the same gets in the way when something else in her demeanor or condition changes yet again
Sometimes I’ve remembered to pray, “Lord, show me the lessons you have for me in all we’re experiencing.” Maybe he’s trying to teach me how to be at peace with change.