Dear friend,
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the LORD your God gives you.
I got short with my mother on the phone once, over something small, a missed pill schedule I had already reminded her about twice. I heard myself use the tone I use when my daughter will not put her shoes on. My own mother. I hung up and sat in the car in a parking lot for ten minutes before I could go inside and act like a person. I did not call back and apologize for two days, because I did not want to hear how small my irritation sounded once I said it out loud.
Exodus 20:12 has been sitting on me this week, the part about honoring parents. I used to think that command was mostly for children who still had homework and curfews. Nobody tells you it keeps applying when you are the one managing their pills and their doctors and your own exhaustion at the same time, and honoring someone does not erase the tiredness underneath it.
Caring for aging parents shows up in so many rooms at once, the car, the pharmacy line, the phone call you brace for before you dial. What is the part of this that nobody warned you would be so heavy?
A prayer
God, this caregiving is wearing her down in ways she cannot always name. Give her patience she does not have on her own, and meet her exhaustion with something steadier than guilt. Amen.