To Watch Parents Grow Old

clarity in little moments

Issue #032

They were so small. Always petite, yes, but there suddenly seemed an absolute vulnerability to them. It was like holding a child’s feet in my hand. When did they become so small?

I was massaging my mother’s feet after a longer time than I’d like to admit. I could feel a roughness to them as I dabbed and massaged olive oil into them. The heels and soles felt like paper, dry and somehow ready to tear. Surely the last time I’d held them they’d been more muscled, too, with that toughness that was a testament to her physical endurance.

I felt a sinking feeling.

Although grateful to still have my mother so close to me, to still have her in my life, I felt a sense of melancholy at seeing her age. She has always looked quite young for her age, but recently, the signs of her age have crept up on us all.

There is a sadness in seeing the people who looked after you when you were small becoming physically less, seeing them tired, taking longer to recover from illness. It almost appears like an undoing of them, as if they’ve built their lives up only to regress to an infantile helplessness.

Of course, that’s just one way of looking at it. I prefer to see it as a way to hold onto the little moments. The quiet instance of me massaging her feet led to a conversation between us, where we spoke as two women, rather than mother and daughter.

I love the intimate conversations of women anyway, but to have them with my mother is especially poignant. The burdens shared, the cares unburdened, there is nothing that acts quite as a balm as that.

So, yes, there is vulnerability, but in that vulnerability is perhaps grace where we can meet one another more as equals. Especially those of us who have immigrant parents with a rigid sense of responsibility, there is a calm to seeing them finally letting go, settling back and holding our hands because they need us and not because we need them.

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Thank you for reading! Please note that Afternotes Book Club will be posting tomorrow (1st Feb) with a monthly reading wrap-up, book review of the book of the month and more.