The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.

Our Children - Our Parents

by Dessa Rodeffer
Quill Editor/Publisher

15 March 2000

Middle Age

I've always been some what claustrophobic. You know what I mean, when you just hate to be stuck in the middle of things.

When I was little I went into my Grandmother's garage where a kitten had crawled inside a roll-away bed that was folded up. I crawled in the middle to get it out, and then I was stuck.

Well, I thought I was stuck. So, in panic, I yelled screamed, and cried and thought I was going to go nuts. I finally realized no one was going to hear me or help me so I better just calm down and see if I can work myself back out. And that is what I did.

Now, I seem to be stuck in the middle of things again, only this time there doesn't seem to be a way I can work myself out..

It is happening more and more to my baby boomer generation, stuck between graduating the children and taking care of parents. It's middle age.

Just when we think we've gained a little bit of relief from hovering over our children as they gain adulthood, we find ourselves hovering over a parent who has weakened by age or ill health and now needs our constant care.

The problem is, we are sandwiched in between our children who have gained their independence (but are now old enough to be concerned about us), and our wise parents (who want to share their vast amount of knowledge on everything we do), while becoming weaker and more dependant on us.

How could this happen?

We thought middle age was suppose to be the time you were not too young or too old to do things. That should leave us at the age of "just right," so we can do about anything we please.

No one warned me when I crawled into the middle of a fold-up bed that I was going to panic, and no one warned me I would panic when I reached middle age.

As I celebrated another birthday Monday, I've been reflecting. I've been looking at my kids who are happily working toward their goals of new homes with my grandkids' fun and laughter. I've also been seeing my mother's contentedness to have no home, but to just be happy singing an old tune.

Then there is me, in the middle. One particularly stressful morning, I was feeling like I had been revolving in circles as my mother kept asking me the same questions over and over again.

Knowing that Alzheimer's doesn't improve, I began to panic and felt I could not handle this situation anymore. I was again caught in the middle.

I finally had to calm myself down and I just had to work myself out of this panic attack of frustration.

I was making dinner and had just put a chicken in the crockpot for evening soup.

I decided I would make some homemade noodles and asked mother if she could remember how Grandmother and she had made them.

She told me "no" but to get out the old recipe book of Grandma's. Of course, who knows where that cookbook is that she is talking about.

I found a recipe in the Lutheran cook book of Esther Lefler's which sounded perfect and I began to make them. Mother is humming again, and a panic feeling of losing her has gotten a hold of me.

I began reading the recipe asking mother if 3 eggs, 2 cups of flour, baking powder, and a teaspoon of salt sounds familiar. She said "yes."

As I was stirring them together, mother began reciting a lively poem out of the blue, that I had never heard before:

1 cup of sugar, 1 cup milk,
2 eggs beaten fine as silk.
Salt & nutmeg, lemon will do,
add baking powder teaspoon 2,
Lightly stir the flour in,
Roll on pie board not too thin,
Cut in diamonds, twist or rings,
Drop with care the doughy things,
Into fat and briskly swells,
Evenly the spongy cells.
Watch them close the time for turning,
Fry them brown just short of burning.
Roll in sugar serve when cool.
Price, twenty-five cents for this rule.

"Where did that come from?" I asked her. "I learned it from Mom's cookbook," she answered.

Then, my son came in and smiled, as she repeated it he wrote the words down.

There I was, in between two people I love, and I'll never forget the good feelings which came with it. It's the blessings that comes from being Middle Age.