They’ve gone. Robin and Anne, my dad and step-mum, who’ve been at our place for most of six weeks, have flown home to Edinburgh and I feel like an empty nester all over again. Since last November, when our son and fiancée moved back in with us we have had a full house once more, with three generations in residence much of the time.
Living like this can have its moments, but for me it has been overwhelmingly good. I’m grateful our kids have had the experience of living close to their grandparents – dropping in for cuppas and meals, throwing parties for them, having them to eat and stay over at their houses and apartments.
I have washed, dried and packed away the sheets and towels and the house feels empty and still. There hasn’t been a lot of time for writing or for time a deux with my husband these last few months, and I look forward to getting both those back. But I miss Dad and Anne! I miss having resident oldies. Living cheek by jowl with them has reminded what remarkable people they are, and inspired me with a vision of what old age can be like.
Sure, they are fortunate enough to be in reasonable health with faculties well and truly intact. Both, however, have had serious health issues a-plenty over the years. Dad, a scholar, lecturer and preacher, is half blind and more than half deaf. Still, he goes on doing what he loves to do, using hearing aids, a monocular, a magnifying glass and beefed up font on his laptop. Anne, who drove an ambulance in the war, climbed Kilimanjaro with a group of blokes as a young woman and has lived all over the world, has dodgy hips now and walking can be difficult.
Despite these limitations, they seem to possess an endless and genuine cheerfulness, as opposed to a fake cheeriness. They laugh off their aches and pains and seem to be, well, grateful is one of the words I most associate with them. When they talk about the past, they are not full of bitterness and regrets but rather of gratitude for their long lives and the continuing richness of their days.
Their interest in other people is part of what keeps them young. When they are with others, especially our kids, they focus intently on them, asking them leading questions, recalling previous conversations, sharing their own stories, encouraging them in their passions. They’ve coped gamely with most of their grandchildren living together without benefit of matrimony, welcoming the boyfriends and girlfriends into their orbit of attentive care.
Their plane leaves at 2am, so we have the whole of their last day to sit around getting nervous and emotional. As it happens, we are understated to the end. We have had a brilliant time with them, done all they wanted to, and everything has been said. They pack, and re-pack, and go for a walk. We have something to eat. We watch a ridiculous Miss Marple mystery on the ABC, killing time, and then they are gone.
I wish they lived around the corner and we could see them every couple of days. But at almost 90, every time we see then is a bonus, and we have had a lifetime of practice at saying goodbye. Every time they stay with us, and spend time getting closer to our kids in their worlds, it lays down memories and layers of love that we will draw upon after we are separated by death. Their faith in some sort of afterlife is catching, as is their matter of factness about separation and life and whatever unfathomable mystery comes after.
As people get older, they seem to either calcify – hardening in their opinions and their emotions, or they are open to change and challenge and their hearts get bigger as they age. I wander round my newly empty house, missing them and hoping to be more like them: adventurous, open, big-hearted and grateful.
