Have a party about it

Today's my birthday. Let's talk about something I did right.

I’ve published 16 essays on mistakes I made while caring for my parents as they aged. I like sharing my mistakes, because if someone can learn from them, maybe they had a purpose. Maybe everything I went through was so other people wouldn’t make the same mistakes.

But today is my birthday! So I’m putting mistakes to the side and talking about something I did right.

When my dad turned 75, I threw him a surprise party.

I invited all of our friends, including everyone who lived locally, my dad’s sister, who flew down from Illinois, and one of my best friends, who came in from Colorado. I told everyone to wait at his apartment’s clubhouse and warned them it could take awhile.

I’d arrived in the morning, arms full of food and Dollar Store decorations. I called my dad hours earlier and reminded him that he needed to shower, get dressed, and wear shorts. Those were my only requirements. Easy enough. But when I arrived to walk him to the party, he was resting in his chair, gathering his strength, unaware there were more than a dozen people waiting for him, with his own requirement for me.

“Before we go—I hate to ask you this—but you gotta do something for me,” my dad said. “You gotta cut my toenails.”

I had known this was coming but tried not to think about it. I think I was hoping he’d go on his own to a nail salon to get a pedicure, or that a doctor would notice his nails and refer him to a podiatrist. I think I just wasn’t ready to admit that he needed that level of help from me. I sighed, and eased his worn leather sandals off his swollen feet.

I flashed back to cutting my rabbit’s nails, that jump-scare feeling of cutting too far and making the nail bleed, my bunny jerking his paw back suddenly, looking at me accusingly, as if to ask why I was hurting him. I was scared of doing the same to my dad.

I bent his toe up a little. “Does that hurt?” I asked. He had a condition that a lot of older people have, where his feet were sensitive and had that “pins and needles” feeling. He shook his head and tried to focus on the television, willing himself not to pull away.

I finished without incident and put his sandals back on carefully, like Prince Charming sliding on Cinderella’s glass slipper.

And with that, an open white button front shirt, his blue swim trunks pulled all the way over his belly button, and the white drawstring tied in a bow, he started to walk with me to the surprise party.

I carried the portable oxygen tank over my shoulder. He put the tiny nubs in his nose and tried to breathe deeply. We shuffled slowly, connected by the leash of the oxygen tubes, and I tried not to move too quickly, not wanting to push him to go faster. Everyone knew he was sick. Everyone would wait.

About halfway to the clubhouse, we stopped so my dad could rest, his breath rapid. In the bright Florida sun, I noticed how pale he was. He spent half his life wishing he could live in Florida and then the second half waiting in a dark apartment for the sun to go down. He hadn’t walked to the pool in months, and this was now a journey.

When we eventually started walking again, down the pathway to the clubhouse, I whispered to him, just before the door: “Please don’t have a heart attack.”

Then we entered.

“Surprise!” my friends, his friends, and our family said, much more softly than perhaps any other surprise party in history.

He smiled with his eyes wide.

Then his sister, my Aunt Suzie, peered out from her hiding spot in the hallway.

“Please don’t have a heart attack,” I whispered again.

He didn’t. He saw her, gasped, clapped his hands together, and laughed. “Thank you,” he said to me. “Thank you.”

It was one of the most heartfelt thanks I ever received from him.

Just a few months later, he was in the hospital for more than three weeks and then in a rehab facility. He was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and kidney disease. Maybe his fatigue and his swollen feet should have tipped me off at the party and I should have sounded an alarm. Maybe I should have––

Nevermind that! I’m publishing this on my birthday, and we’re talking about what I did right.

I threw him a party for his 75th birthday because I wanted him to feel loved. I didn’t think he had that much longer to live (shockingly, he got six more years and was able to meet one of his grandchildren and know my husband). I thought it made more sense to celebrate him while he was here than to gather everyone for a funeral once he was gone.

He died in early 2021, when it was still hard to gather people together, when COVID was still all over the news and no one would’ve wanted to eat vegan cherry pie in a clubhouse surrounded by strangers.

I’m thankful I threw him a party when I had a chance and when he could participate. It wasn’t easy. Getting him there and worrying about his oxygen and his fatigue were all hurdles.

But it was worth it.

Maybe you don’t need to throw your parent a big party. Still, I want to encourage you to think about what you can do to celebrate them right now. How can you make them feel loved? If they’re healthy, can you plan something active that they’ll enjoy? If they’re less healthy, can you bend the celebration around their needs? Don’t wait until some magical future time when you imagine they’ll be healthier. As they age, they’ll likely be able to do less and less, so I encourage you to do what you can right now to celebrate with them as they are.

Even if you have to cut their toenails first.