Parents, have you had the conversation with your children? You know that one that speaks to the life altering changes and the impact it has on significant others in your life. No, I'm not speaking about the sex talk, though that may very well be the timely conversation for your present family realities.
I'm talking about the other end of the age, time and space, social impact continuum. The time of life when body, mind and quality of life begins to show the wear and tear of a life fully lived. The conversations that feel too vulnerable to mention. Where fierce independence begins to give way to care, support and eventually dependence on others to continue to allow quality of life its fullest expression for each and every day possible.
It's not always an easy conversation or ongoing engagement with your spouse, adult children or other significant people in your life. Sometimes physical or emotional distance is a barrier between family members. Yet it is so very important. I encourage you to open that conversation with your adult children, find a trusted friend, a minister or pastor who can come alongside you and help to negotiate the layers of personal, physical, medical, residential, legal and financial possibilities. There are amazing resources available.
Our immediate and extended family have just been thrust into this reality and if you haven't been talking about and actively preparing for the changes that are inevitable, the impact can be traumatic. But it doesn't have to be.
