Visiting my parents in Vermont for two weeks

It's hard to describe the complete change of pace that occurs whenever my family and I fly 2000 miles across country and drive from Boston up to Vermont to visit with my parents twice a year.

I always think it will be easy to maintain contact with others (it isn't) or that I will continue to find time and access to a computer regularly (hardly) and that all the beauty and history and feelings from being where I grew up will naturally evoke material for writing that will be effortless.

But, alas, here's what happens: I am overwhelmed to find how time has changed my parents. I am worried about how they live all on their own without any other children, other than myself, to care for them.

I sit and think about what I can do and then the battle about "don't change things for us" starts and I begin to shut down. Sadly, that's what happens.

I try not to faint when I see all the appliances plugged into an outlet crowded like a bad yard sale just over the leaky kitchen faucet. I look at two people who think these dingy "eco-friendly" light bulbs are adequate to do illuminate anything at all, let alone cook over gas.

I worry about the stairs and the walkers and the ice storms. I worry about the glass paned front door that would make burglary so easy. I worry that it does seem like this area of Vermont is less remote and more of an extension of a bigger city, with it's strung out residents sitting on stoops down town.

I know I should concentrate on the beauty and trust the process. Trust that my parents have done fine on their own all this time, but what I see is that nothing stays the same. Nothing and no one. And to assume things are the same is an act of denial.

I see a world that is expanding into places I never imagined. And I am concerned how that sharing of space will be handled. Will that transition be all peaceful, or will it result in fighting or worse.

I shake my head when I see the snow shovel that my 83 year old father uses to clear the snow and ice from the driveway, when he's had so many surgeries lately. I see so much they take for granted is normal daily life, (like no heat in their bedroom, no insulation in their attic). There is a television in the living room but they don't like "those channels that get so confusing to understand." The phone they have used for the past ten years only works if you scream into the mouthpiece. I feel so bad that we live such a life of luxury and modern convenience back in California compared to this.

But, there is so little I can do to help. And yet, they give us so much. And I wish I felt fine about that. But, I don't.

I did manage to get them to upgrade their home's phones. One even has a ringer that flashes a bright red light so that my father can "see" it ring (he refuses to wear his hearing aid.). I noticed during this trip that he only wore his hearing aid to his second viewing of the latest "Harry Potter" movie.

And while we were here they did hire an electrician to install motion detector lights around their home for after dark.

But, that's about it for the upgrades. ANd, it's not much of an improvement with colder weather a few months away.

And in a few days we will head back into Boston and fly back home to California and I will hope and pray that the few small changes we made will be enough until next I come out.

I know I should be writing about the history, the beauty, the quiet of New England, and it is, truly, awe-inspiring...but, somehow being the only child of aging parents makes it impossible to wholly embrace the stunning and serene beauty of it all without that nagging feeling that I might be able to do something more, while in town,...Something crucial and important to them if only knew what that was.