A season for everything
Elly has been fussier than normal in the evening this past week. My dad happened to call during one of her fussy spells, and that seemed to do the trick. She immediately became fascinated with his face that seemed to appear out of nowhere on the screen in front of her.
We started chatting about my dad's upcoming retirement, and about how my grandparents were doing in China. That's when he shared that my grandpa had throat cancer, that they found out about a month ago, and that they'd already operated on him. He was recovering ok, but currently has no voice. I asked if they've told him, and my dad said that the family has decided for now to keep it from both him and my grandma. (In China, doctors tell the family and the family decides whether or not to share the news with the patient. If you've ever seen The Farewell, you'd be clued in on the cultural dynamic here.) I then asked how my grandma was doing, and my dad said that she mostly relies on her wheelchair to get around, and suffers from insomnia from the pain all over her body.
"They are getting old," he said. "Your grandpa's ninety, he can't handle cancer treatments. The doctors are going to give him some herbal remedies to manage the discomfort so that it's a slower decline."
I asked when and if we could visit, and my dad said that COVID-19 has made travel to China more difficult. We would need to apply for a visa (which currently requires special circumstances for approval given the pandemic). He had already looked into flights, and saw that there’s a direct flight from LA to Shanghai. "But once in Shanghai, they will escort all American passengers directly to a hotel to quarantine for 14 days. Then you'll get on another flight to go to Xi An where your grandparents are, and there's a mandatory quarantine there too. So even before you can see family, you'll have quarantined for a month."
I suddenly felt my eyes well with tears, and because I didn't want to deal with the emotions right then, I quickly changed the subject by turning the phone toward Elly and her totally cute open-mouthed asleep face.
After the call, I couldn't help but be reminded of how insignificant a baby crying for a few minutes was, and how in the grand scheme of things, new motherhood will be such a happy memory compared to the declining health of our aging loved ones.
It's inevitable, isn't it, this circle of life? Just because we know that our grandparents will one day pass doesn't make the thought any easier. It only reminds us that our parents who we now take for granted will always pick up the phone when we call will someday not be here. And that someday, we won't be able to hug our children close and kiss them and tell them we love them because we won't be here either. All of it is almost too much to handle. But what can we do about it? That's the thing with inevitability, is that this is a reality we must all face sooner or later.
The fall season is in full force here in the Midwest. I went for a walk this morning and it was like I was seeing the changing colors of the leaves in a whole new light. New parenthood, too, is a season. We all have many seasons in our lives. There will be the up times (when we bring new life into this world), and there will be the down times (when we watch our loved ones suffer through declining health). But like it or not, it’s these ups and the downs that help us experience the richness of what we have and what we live for.
In this current season, amidst the hope of a new life beginning, I feel the fear of so many what ifs. And yet I'm realizing that the inverse is also true. Within this fear of loss and the unknown, there is hope that there must inevitably be more beautiful seasons to come.