Being a mother at age 53!

I never thought I would become a mother at age 53, but here I am with a son. Yes, I have a son now: my beloved dad. This is an incredible honor, but very hard, nonetheless! When you have a child of your own you can be firm when the situation calls upon, I suppose. However, one needs extra strength and lots of love to be firm with a grown-up, especially when this grown up is your beloved dad. Today dad was supposed to draw blood for a routine health check-up. I scheduled the lab technician to come here at 7am to draw his blood. At 3am he calls me and says he is going to faint because he had not drunk his 12 midnight Ensure. He was not supposed to eat or drink anything during the night in order to do his blood test in the morning. He has hypoglycemia and I know how hard it is to go without food or drink for a couple of hours when you have hypoglycemia. I am a hypoglycemic myself. I had to tell him that he had to try hard to hang in there. At 6:30am he calls me in my room upstairs and says he is going to have his oatmeal for breakfast. Then I had to muster all my motherly love and strength and be very firm and tell him that he was not going to faint if he did not have his oatmeal right away. He could wait for 30 minutes more. It was very hard to talk to him and be firm, but I had to. I had no alternative. Anyway, it was a long night, but we made it through. The lab technician came at 7am, as scheduled, and dad did not faint as he had predicted he would if he did not have his oatmeal at 6:30. I developed a technique to deal with him in these situations: when I look at him, instead of seeing the 86-year old man he is, I see that adorable kid he was when he was little. Seeing him as a little kid makes it much easier for me to find the strength and the patience to deal with him during these difficult moments. So, my advice for all of you mothers out there: be patient, be firm, but always look at the little kid inside your child, be it a small one or an 86-year old one like mine. I realize now that being a mother is a real challenge and only love can survive such challenge.