It used to be that we would have to hurry to catch up to dad, but now we had to slow down so he would not be left behind. Dad had always been a very fast walker, however, that Sunday morning as we were headed to the bus stop, he did not hesitate to ask me to slow down. Then, he smiled and told me: “You know… I don’t have the same stamina as I used to… dad is getting old”. 

I slowed down, looked at him, acknowledged I had indeed been walking a little too fast, but I quickly reminded him that he was still so very young. I said it because I wanted to believe it, but my eyes welling up with tears believed otherwise. The reality was that as a man in his mid-70s, he was now considered an old man.

When thinking of my parents, I remember them the way they were and not the way they are becoming. It is a little bit of a hard reality to have to cope with “a new them” with new habits, slow strides, physical limitations, constant focus on whether they have taken their required meds and frequent doctor’s appointments.

Where had time gone? My living and serving abroad had not frozen time, but made it easy to forget that weeks, years and decades were passing by. Furloughs, however, always reminded me that people change, people grow old. That Sunday morning, as I slowed down for dad, Ecclesiastes 3:1 came to mind: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens” and then I thought “there is time to be young and a time to be old, and as mom and dad are growing older, the best way I can honor them is to accept the season of life they are in and help them through it.”