My mama was an amazing grandmother, known as “MamMam” and loved taking my boys on outdoor adventures. She changed her grandbabies’ diapers and held my hand through postpartum depression she didn’t understand. She told stories about how I would scream and irritate our neighbors when I was a baby. She brought doughnuts for breakfast and pushed the cart through Sam’s Club and laughed as my baby found out he could scream as mama was shopping. She was there for my wedding and for the birth of my three oldest boys. The pain-in-my-neck when I wanted to just drink and spend the night with my boyfriend and be a normal college student. My mom continued to work full-time while I went to school. Fox had just revealed his diagnosis and all we knew was that the disease made your hands shake. She was 59.įor many years the Parkinson’s was nothing more than a hassle. My mom was then diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 1999. I lost my marbles, but still felt like one of those kids who tragically and unexpectedly lost a parent at a young age. He’d been sick for several years, but my parents both made me aware of and downplayed this fact. The day after I graduated high school, though, my dad passed away.
We got irritated by all the people who assumed my parents were my grandparents, but they kept up and stayed young and I essentially saw no difference between my childhood and those of my peers. I was placed in this generation by my parents who, both married before, had me at ages 36 (my dad) and 40 (my mom). The sandwich generation is defined as a “generation of people, usually in their 30s or 40s, who are both caring for aging parents and supporting children.” This sandwich generation is a relatively new phenomenon, brought about by either our parents, who decided to wait until later in life to have us, or due to our own decision to wait until we were older to marry and have children. Welcome to life in the sandwich generation. Except then I loaded up, leaving my oldest three (ages 10, 9, and 5) behind, so I could go spend a few hours with my mom in a nursing home. This morning I got up at 6am, cooked breakfast, did a load of laundry, showered, taught a couple classes at the Y, bought groceries, put those groceries away - a typical Saturday for a mama.
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