New Skills. Same Love.

I’ve mentioned my 90-year-old mom before, but I haven’t really talked about her main caretaker, my 91-year-old dad.

My dad was very successful in his career. He’s incredibly intelligent, intense in a very intellectual way, determined, and when he gets interested in something, he becomes mildly obsessed with it. He researches it, thinks about it, talks about it and pretty much doesn’t let it go until he’s figured it out. Sound familiar? I guess I come by some things honestly.

My mom held down the fort at home. She had five kids, although I’m not entirely convinced five kids were ever actually part of her life plan. It was just what women did back then. You got married, you had children, and you took care of the home.

Pregnancy came easily to her, giving birth, apparently, even easier. Raising the five of us was a bit more challenging. Sometimes I wonder how she managed it. I barely survived raising one, and I had the benefit of modern conveniences, takeout food, and Google. Five kids? Suddenly, I understand why she always looked so tired in our old home movies. The poor woman probably hadn’t finished a complete thought or a hot meal in fifteen years.

If raising five kids wasn't enough, our family life, and really much of their life together, revolved around my dad’s career. His job determined where we lived, when we moved and, in many ways, how our family functioned. He was building his career and providing for the family, while my mom made sure everything at home kept running.

They were both fiercely independent and very strong-willed. My mom liked being in control at home, and my dad was perfectly happy to let her be. They had their roles. They had their routine. It just worked.

I honestly don’t think my dad changed a diaper until his grandchildren came along. He certainly didn’t cook meals, other than grilling outside. He didn’t do laundry. He didn’t load or unload the dishwasher. It wasn’t because he was lazy or thought those things were “women’s work.” They simply started their marriage living by 1950s rules, divided up the responsibilities accordingly, and just never held another staff meeting.

He handled his world. She handled hers. For about 68 years, it worked pretty damn well for them. Then my mom had a stroke at 89, while my dad had just turned 90. In one moment, the rules of a 68-year marriage changed.

Once the initial shock was over and we moved past hospitals, doctors and the urgency of getting Mom better, my dad was suddenly home with a woman who couldn’t be in charge anymore. So he had to be.

I’m honestly not sure how many 90-year-old men could have done what he did. If I’m being completely truthful, I wasn’t entirely sure he could either.

I remember typing out instructions in GIANT print explaining how to run the dishwasher. Then came the washing machine. Then the dryer. Basically, I was creating an entire household operations manual for a man who had managed a very successful career but had never been formally introduced to the rinse cycle.

I went through those instructions over and over. Put the soap HERE. Turn this knob HERE. Push THIS button. No, Dad, THIS button.

There was something both funny and a little sad about watching this incredibly intelligent man, who had spent his life solving complicated problems, managing people and making important decisions, stare at a washing machine like NASA had just asked him to launch the space shuttle.

But laundry and dishes were the easy part. He also had to learn how to give my mom her medications. Unlike the laundry, getting this wrong actually mattered. Some of those medications were literally life and death. Suddenly, a man who had spent most of his married life leaving the details of running a household to his wife was now responsible for something far more important than clean towels. He had to make sure she got the right medications, in the right doses, at the right times. There was no room for error.

The first couple of weeks were rough. He forgot most times, so I checked every day to make sure Mom had gotten everything she needed. I became part daughter, part caretaker and part extremely annoying medication compliance officer. “Hi Dad, did Mom get her pills?” basically replaced “Hi Dad, how are you?”

Then I had to leave for a week. We talked about hiring an aide while I was gone because this was one thing we simply couldn't take a chance on. But he wasn't quite ready to give up trying. He wanted a couple more days to see if he could manage on his own.

Now remember that determined, mildly obsessive part of his personality I mentioned earlier? Thank God for it. He figured out a system and he didn’t miss one dose. Not one!

That was probably the moment I realized I had underestimated him. He hadn’t done any of these things for 68 years, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do them. He simply had never needed to. Now he needed to, so he learned.

The dishwasher eventually surrendered. So did the washing machine. He figured out meals, medications, appointments and the thousand little things my mom had quietly handled for most of their marriage.

Trust me, there are still questions. Lots and lots of questions. I have taken on the new role of 24-hour tech support line for him, and I am more than happy to do it, but he figured it out.

At 90 years old, when most of us would probably argue that we are way too old to completely reinvent ourselves, he did exactly that.

The woman who had spent 68 years making sure his life worked suddenly needed him to make hers work. There’s something incredibly beautiful about that to me.

Growing up, their marriage was what I thought love was supposed to look like. It was the kind of love I knew I wanted to strive for someday. In my mind, theirs was the stuff romance novels were written about. Not because it was perfect, but because it was real. They could annoy the hell out of each other and still be completely crazy about each other and we always knew that about them.

Maybe that’s what makes watching them now so meaningful. All those years of my mom throwing surprise parties and my dad leaving rose-petal hearts on the table eventually became something neither of them could have imagined. At 90, romance looked a little different. It looked like medications taken on time, appointments remembered, meals figured out and, yes, learning how to run the damn washing machine.

Maybe that’s the part of the romance novel nobody writes about. My dad spent most of his life being the one who went out into the world while my mom held everything together at home. Then, when she couldn’t hold it together anymore, he did. At 90 years old, my dad learned how to run the damn dishwasher. But really, he learned how to become something completely different because the person he loved needed him to. If that doesn't say true love, than I don't know what does.

I guess my dad got his own plot twist. At 90 years old, life handed him a role he never expected, never trained for and certainly never applied for. In true Dad fashion, once he realized the job was his, he figured it out.

Plot twist… Mom just got hearing aids and Dad needs to learn how to put them in. Pray for us all.