I Will Never Learn To Obey

Dolly hugged my arm as we walked around the lake on Sunday, every other step asking "Did you tell them I left,"or "Is it ok that we are walking so far?" and it hit me like a platitude that we had reversed roles. Everyone knows this eventually happens. We like to quote Ecclesiastes and sing our plaintive folk songs about "Turn Turn Turn"-ing. "To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose. A time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to reap, a time to kill, a time to heal..."

If I were a geriatric Dolly and she were me, I'd like her to be the 10-year-old fearless me that explored the woods and caught frogs and hugged the wet dog that lumbered from the lake and shook a spray of muddy water over gleeful me. Or even the teenager who staggered in the house with Veronica at 3am, hidden beer bottles sliding from her jacket that rolled slowly across the living room floor as Dolly, who had waited up, stood watching in her bathrobe.

Dolly has become the obedient and "perfect child". Now that I am her mother, she does all the work for me. I don't have to worry about her wandering away from the assisted-living facility. She is a mother's dream. Funny, I used to try to get my kids to skip school, get a little wild. All were such disciplined athletes and smart people. None matched my reckless rebellion.

When I grow old and am unable to care for myself I must get myself to the wilderness, push myself off in a canoe, and drift away. Caring for an aging me would be unbearable, no doubt. I fear I will never learn to obey.