On How Not To Be Totally Honest

This living with your elderly parents thing gets tricky. Like, how honest am I supposed to be when it comes to questions like, "How does my hair look?" And statements like, "I think I need a new artificial knee," or "Let me help you carry those groceries in from the car" leave me teetering on a very line between wanting to protect their feelings ( "Your hair looks great today!" Or, "A new knee? Okay, well, let's call the doc and see what he thinks", or "It's okay Dad, I can manage the groceries by myself, but thanks for asking.") and trying to keep things real ("Hair? What hair? You barely have hair! Or, "Right--you need a new artificial knee like you need a hole in the head. The surgery would probably kill you!" Or, "No you cannot help me with the groceries, you can barely keep yourself upright with your walker!").

I know, I know. You read that first paragraph just now and you're thinking--you unsympathetic b****! Of course you protect their feelings! It's just mean to do anything else.

Yup. Except...........I'm human too. So on a day when life is progressing nicely with little to no stress, my knee-jerk response is always to protect my parents' feelings and take the road of sympathy and sensitivity.

But........life isn't always smooth now is it? Stuff happens, stress rises, and I, sadly, am not always oozing with sensitivity and/or sympathy. It took me a good year to figure out that this was okay, even normal for people in my situation. That one's parents get on one's nerves at times. That watching one's parents get older and older, their bodies becoming more and more frail sometimes by the month, is wearing on one's patience. So, yes, I admit that I sometimes respond to comments like "I just feel so old today" with "That's because you ARE old." Of course, to be fair to myself, and before you completely write me off as an ungrateful daughter, I always try to infuse some humor into everything so I would probably follow up my response with "So I guess that means we're not hopping a plane and heading for Rio today eh? "

So, anyway, the other day my mother toddled into the kitchen and said, "I walk like a duck."

Now the truth of the matter is, my mother does walk like a duck. She has walked like a duck every since her knees started to give out on her..........ohhhhh, about twenty years ago. So, you can imagine my dilemma when she suddenly announces that she has realized her gait has gone fowl. How did I respond? Several seconds passed while I weighed my options--"Yes, Mom, you do walk like a duck"; or "What? No you don't. What a silly thing to say. You walk just fine!"

For some reasons, I opted to say nothing, which, I am finding more and more, to be the best response of all. I mean, maybe Mom and Dad say these things not looking for a response at all. Perhaps all they're really doing is just thinking out loud, commenting to nobody in particular. And the funny things is, when I don't respond, they don't really seem to notice.

I dunno........I'm thinking that for people like me who live and/or care for parents in their so-called golden years, there might be a whole new meaning to the phrase Silence is Golden.