A Call for the Squad and the Change of Two Lives

A call for the squad, a night in the emergency room, and an admission to the hospital—all this, and my parents’ lives change. They now live in a small apartment in assisted living, only two minutes and two seconds from my house. (Mom asked me to time.)

After only one week in, let me just say that I’m proud of my parents.

“This is like Pennsylvania Dutch cooking,” my dad says during one of his first meals in the dining room. “And with no Mennonites in the kitchen.”

One of their aides seems like a Bender. Another like a Hershberger. Familiar names from their home community.

My nonagenarian parents are handling all the intimate ways they need care with great dignity and humor and gratefulness. And celebrating that now with no grocery pick-ups, bed making, and laundry, they’ve got more time to write.

Mom, who copies the Bible by pencil into notebooks, is moving through the Psalms. My dad’s living back in 1895, researching and writing about the split of the Old Order Amish and the Amish Mennonites.

At the retirement center, my mom’s got lots of new friends. So she keeps giving away Erma’s Story, a collection of childhood memories my dad compiled for her. Her book has become her calling card.

I’m eating lunch with my parents one day when the CEO of the retirement center stops by our table.

“Erma,” he says. “I had the most frightful weekend!”

Concern flies across her face.

“What happened?” she asks.

“I was there when the house burned down,” he says. “And when Raymond fell to the tongue of the runaway wagon and when Papa almost lost the farm in the Depression.”

Awareness dawns for my mom.

“You read my book!” she says.

He nods.

“I felt so sad when your Papa didn’t hear you call and you missed your ride to town.”

You should have seen my mom’s face.

She leans toward me.

“He reminds me of my brother Oren,” she says. “He tells a good story.”

It’s not easy, this transition. You don’t leave an established, loved home without pain. And we’ve still got adjustments to make. But so far, it’s a promising match—my parents leaning into their new lives, finding themselves in the eyes of the new people they meet. And the community around them celebrating who they are.