By Ron Hayes
In her 2009 memoir, Minor League Mom, Pamela Carey shared the humor she found among the home runs and foul balls after her sons, Tim and Todd, joined a Boston Red Sox farm team back in the 1990s.
Now she’s back with a humorous look at the other end of life’s game.
In Elderly Parents With All Their Marbles: A Survival Guide for the Kids, Carey offers 49 “essential points” for the adult children of aging parents. And again she finds the humor amid the heartbreak. “We brought my parents down here from Greenwich, Conn., when we bought our home in Gulf Stream 20 years ago,” Carey recalled recently. “It wasn’t an easy task, but I truly believe it added 10 years to their lives.”
That’s Rule 1: Bite the bullet — move them closer.
Carey’s parents, Walt and Ev, were in their 80s when they arrived in Leisureville, a retirement community just across the bridge in Boynton Beach.
“That first year, there was a lot of ‘Why did you move us? We can’t drink the water. The A/C bills are so high. We have no friends,’” she said. “But Leisureville provided an instant support group, and my father became a block captain until his early 90s.”
A former high school English teacher who still keeps a daily journal, Carey drew on those daily entries to flavor her rules with smiles.
“My dad would always collect the uneaten food when we went out to eat,” she remembered, “and in addition, he would wrap all the rolls in napkins and put them in his pockets. One day, as we were preparing to leave, all the rolls spilled out.”
In time, though, her parents began to fail. Her father died at 90, her mother at 95. As Carey recounts their finals years, months and days, the advice grows more somber, with practical advice about hospitals, nursing homes and, finally, Rule 49: There is no right or wrong way to get through a loss.
Carey’s book concludes with an extensive appendix of “Useful Definitions, Notes, Websites and Phone Numbers,” from AARP to Veterans Affairs.
“I’ve read that there will be a 48 percent increase in the need for caregivers in the next 10 years,” she said, “but only a 1 percent increase in the supply, so the topic is extremely relevant right now.”
For her part, Carey is moving on to a lighter and livelier subject.
“My next book,” she said, “will be about women’s tennis teams and the stress of competing if you’re 55 or older and someone comes out in her 20s in a sports bra and wants to get the match over as soon as possible to go home and get the kids.”
Pam Carey’s books are available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. Her blog can be found at minorleaguemom.blogspot.com.
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