Growing Older

by Laura

Now that both of our parents are gone, it's been quite a reality check for us.

Our father's first cousin is 91 years old. She was 15 when our father was born. She's in an assisted living facility. Because she never married or had children, her nieces and nephew (all in their fifties) look after her. Several years ago, those three cousins lost their parents in a bus accident.

We chose not to marry or have children. We don't have what it takes to be an effective spouse or parent. The trade-off is that we don't have someone to look after us in our old age, unless we can count on our nieces. We don't think it's fair to burden them, but then again, would we say the same thing if we had children of our own?

Times like this we wish we could hide in our inside world and stay there. :-/