I like change! It challenges me. Change allows me to be creative, and gives me numerous possibilities for growth. Change is my quick resort when work becomes routinary and when things look dull, boring, and ordinary.
In our house, something has to look different almost every three months: the arrangement of the furniture or the dominant color of the interior or the replacement of the indoor plants. Change is interestingly fulfilling especially when you can create it.
There’s a change lately though that, sadly, is unwanted. It’s a change that makes my heart heavy every time I’m with my parents. It’s a change that I wish had never happened and I find myself with zero capacity to reverse.
I used to see going home to my parents as my time to rest, because, then, I could be the daughter that I was again to my parents – having the luxury of things done for me. But now, I go home and act as a “parent” to them. I do most things for them.
Before, strength resided in my Dad’s hands. Those hands I depended on to open tight jars, fix things and carry heavy load for me. Now, the only strength left in his hands is the strength to carry his cane and to hold on to something to keep him from falling. My dad, who taught me many things, has to be instructed now what to do and how to do things. He has to be reminded about almost everything – including my name. It hurts to be stared at and be asked by your own dad, “Who are you?”
Where did all his strength, soundness of mind and memory go? Yes, I know that these things go with old age. But reality doesn’t hit you sorely until it hits your own.
It hurts to see my parents at this state. And it’s sad to think that my last memories of my parents would be when they were, I would say, at their very demanding, tiring and irritating stage; when their need for help each time they move would put my patience to the test. These are the last memories that, sadly, can take dominance over all memories stored in my brain – unless I, by the grace and strength that God provides, create something beautiful out of this change.
This stage won’t, for sure, change my parents anymore, but it can change me! This stage can grow me. To learn to give sacrificially, to love unconditionally, and to serve joyfully. To seek to understand their frustrations over their physical limitations more than I want to be understood for my exhaustion. To learn to ignore their child-like acts of selfishness and self-centeredness, knowing that they don’t spring from their hearts, but from their deteriorating brains. To treat them with greater compassion, sympathy, patience, and love because if they had been given the choice, they would not have chosen this. They would have chosen to remain strong and able so that they can continue to give to and serve us. Neither is this their plan nor their choice. This is God’s. This is God’s wanted change, to change me!
Cynthia Roxas is the Operations Director of International Graduate School of Leadership (IGSL). She has been married to Tom Roxas, president of IGSL, for 30 years; and together have been blessed with three children: Pristine, a campus missionary with CCF Elevate, Patrick, a professor at the University of the Philippines and Pete, in senior high school.
