they left yesterday

this visit from my in-laws by far was much more pleasant. thank god! it was their longest visit, but honestly, it didn't seem that long. cody and i were sick from the start, and chiyang's mom was quite understanding. cody really took to chiyang's dad and well, by the last day, we got everyone sick. hee, hee... i sent them home with a whole bunch of cold medications.

we didn't do much, but chiyang's dad figured out there are a lot of "metallic rocks" in our backyard. he spent most part of one day walking around the backyard with a magnet picking out rocks with high metal content. it got cody's attention. so on the last day, i took them to piestewa peak, and the two of them were picking up all sorts of rocks. cody was partial to white and pink quartz. i guess they are more easily identified in all the brown dirt and black rocks. i was joking with chiyang, if we keep this up, we might have the whole mountain in our backyard. honestly, i'm thinking of driving back to return the rocks.

chiyang did try to talk to his folks about his grandmother's condition. and the basic conclusion is chiyang's father wants his mother to be part of the decision, however, we don't feel she understands what is safe for her. i guess this is what happens when you hear talk about the difficulties of caring for elderly parents. on one hand you want them to be okay with the decisions you are making about them, you want their blessing but then on the other it is important to recognize that they may not be the best final authority on those decisions. partly because of their self-pride, traditions and dementia. i guess chiyang's dad has a hard time going against his mother's wishes. which is to be cared for by her only son. she won't want to be left at a nursing home, cos it's probably embarassing to herself and she probably thinks it's shameful to have a son that wants to move her to a nursing home and of course, so then the whole issue of safety and adequate care suddenly is not important and practicality is thrown out the window.

chiyang's mom came up with the suggestion of bringing her to chinatown (where they work) and dropping her off at an elder day care center while they are at the office, so that she won't be left at home alone (which is not safe). however, when chiyang's mom suggested it, chiyang's dad totally objected saying his mother won't like that, and his solution was to bring her to his office so that she could be with him (cos that's what she wants, to be with her son). chiyang's mom then said it wasn't just an issue of not being left alone, but also interaction. if she's at his office, she's just staring at him. if she's at elder day care, she will have people desiring interaction, people her age to talk to, and since it's chinatown, there will be someone who can speak her language. i think it's a great idea. but whether they follow through on it is yet to be seen.

i find this a very difficult and interesting situation to observe. cos through watching how things play out, i often wonder, how would chiyang's parents prefer to be cared for when they get up into their 70s and 80s. i mean right now they are only talking about the immediate future, they are working on building the family business up, helping chiyang's younger brother be successful and grooming him to take over the family business. but when we talk, it doesn't seem like there are many discussed plans for anything past that time. whenever we ask, they talk about how they are too busy thinking about these next 2 to 5 years. it leaves me wondering how should we plan for that when they haven't voiced their plans. i do wish they would start thinking about, you know, planning for it, letting us know their wishes, so that when they get up there in age, we can say, this is your plans, and we are carrying them out. rather than constantly try to reason with someone who might have dementia, can't remember and dealing with the guilt of having to make decisions for them, hurting them, you know... all that...

i'm thinking 5 years from now, the possibilities are that we will be more settled in phoenix with more kids, maybe both siblings will be married, chiyang's brother might move back to chicago to take on a larger role in the family business... and i wonder, will they want to stay in chicago? when will the winters get too cold for them? in another 15 years?

i think secretly chiyang and i are hoping that they keep their options opened and not be too stubborn on living in chicago only. hoping that they consider shuttling between all three siblings depending on the weather. between the two of us, we wonder if in the future they should come stay with us in the first three months of the year. but we also wonder how will we accomodate them for such a long time when our family grows. we wonder if they will be happy here since all their friends are in chicago. then we also think about how will they support themselves? they talk about never retiring and that's probably because they don't have a good retirement fund or strategy, so we worry for them too. i know it's a lot of long term thinking... but isn't it always good to plan ahead?

i guess since the both of us are first borns, we feel the traditional family role of taking care of our parents weigh heaviest on us. chiyang being the oldest son and myself being the oldest with not boys in the family. and yet we also in the same breath wonder how traditional do they expect us to be? being a first generation asian, living in this westernized world, the lines are blurred, what is really expected of us? where do we draw the line when we ask questions? when do our questions become offensive and we don't even know it? having open lines of communication is always important, but tradition has never been that practical... sigh...

i try to observe my in-laws and how they care for their parents and to be honest, i wonder if they would be satisfied if we gave them the same treatment. because i truly don't plan on that... but i also understand that neither of them got to observe their parents care for their grandparents, cos they immigrated to US and left that responsibility to their siblings who didn't come over. so in some ways, they have never experienced the headaches of dealing with stubborn parents, safety issues while leaving an elder at home alone, etc... do you see the breakdown... there was no modeling of what should be done, what worked what didn't... yes yes... a lot to analyze, understand and digest... maybe since they aren't talking about it, thinking about it, i should leave it alone for now... but should i? how responsible is that now that i've thought this far? i hate it that i'm such an analyzer...