I feel old.....and lonely

I spent Tuesday with my in-laws. My father-in-law had minor surgery at the VA hospital in Minneapolis. My Mother-in-law didn't want to drive by herself so my husband did the driving. One of my sister-in-laws came with too.

20+ years ago when I met my husbands family, my Mother-in-law had just started taking her mother places. My husband's grandmother had reached that age when she shouldn't be driving any more. I would listen to my MIL grumble about taking grandma shopping, how difficult it was to get the groceries, buy cloths....

When I asked my MIL why she does it if she hates doing it so much, her reply was "just wait and see, some day you will be old and you will be taking me or dad places when we get to old to do it alone"

As I sat there in the waiting room, I started to notice the wrinkles in my MIL face. She had always looked so young. People often mistook her as a sister, not  a mother.  I saw the worry in her face as we waited for the surgeon to come out and tell us everything went OK. I could imagine the thoughts of "what if" that she had running thru her brain.

I had a few of my own spinning up there. What if the unthinkable happened and we lost my FIL? What would become of my husbands family. They all relied on their dad so much. He was who they turned to for advise, help, money. I watched my own family fall to pieces after my Mom died. I would hate to see something like that happen to his.

I started to think about my MIL. She had not spent a night alone in her house in over 40 years. There had always been children running around even if my FIL had gone on a hunting trip. There are 6 kids in the family so a night alone was unheard of. If my FIL had to spend the night in the hospital (that was the original plan) it would have been the first time in a very long time my MIL would be alone. She said she was scared to death to be alone.

As I sat there thinking about my in-laws. I started to think about myself. What would I do if something happened to my husband? We don't have children to help out. If it was him going in for surgery, who would be there watching me? Would I find the strength to drive to the big city by myself?

People who have known about my past say things like "you are so strong" -or- "you have overcame so much"...That was a long time ago!  I didn't feel very strong back then.  I just did what I needed to do to survive.  Thinking back now, if I was truly a strong person, I wouldn't have gotten in those predicaments in the first place.

I sometimes wonder if I made a mistake, not pushing the baby thing. We found out before we were even married that the chance of me getting pregnant would be slim to none. after about ten years we thought children would be nice. I went thru a surgery trying to correct the problem. We did the whole infertility game, stopping at in-vitro fertilization. Our insurance didn't cover it and we didn't have the money available for such a thing.

As time went on, I was selfishly glad we didn't have kids. we didn't have to change our lifestyle or make the sacrifices we saw other young parents making. We could do and go as we pleased with out worry about babysitters or hauling baby stuff around. we didn't have to worry about the future. Our goal was to spend every penny before we went to our grave....after all we didn't have any one to leave it too.

Suddenly with out warning, we (hubby and me) are the ones taking the parents to appointments, checking in on them to make sure they are OK. as my MIL once said...wait until you get old....I'm feeling a little old right now, and a little scared.

I see how easily it is to loose some one. In the blink of an eye a loved one could be taken from us. I know I can't dwell on that, but I can't help it, it's part of who I am. I am hoping by putting this out there instead of holding it in my wee brain, the thoughts will go away. They creep into my sleep at night and keep me awake.