A Role Reversal

To reverse is to go backwards? Is a role reversal when the roles we play return to those of an earlier time? Or it is when we reverse roles in the current reality?

The child becomes the parent when the mother gets dementia or the father shuffles slowly, though still able to enjoy his favorite peppermint patty as Parkinson's slows his gait?

What happened was I bought two tickets for Mom and I to go the ballet. It was my birthday…or was it hers? The roles so reversed that I can't remember if we were celebrating my birth or hers. We had good seats, and she smiled. We moved slowly out into the aisle so she could use the bathroom at intermission. We returned to share a chocolate bar. I helped her stand to applaud and guided her into the arms of her black, wool coat. The woman in front of us turned to speak just after the last curtain call.

"It is so wonderful that you are taking your mother out, and spending time with her."

Mom wasn't able to speak anymore, just to smile in gratitude or nod with pleasure and sometimes frown her refusal. I wanted to appreciate the acknowledgment that I had been able to put the car in reverse. I was touched and sad.

Reversing course to care for Mom was unexpected.

The car was always in reverse with Dad and me. He came without his mother and so we all became his. Me most of all, perhaps as the oldest.

It started when I was very young. He held my hand as we walked on the Beverly Hills sidewalks before, as my mother would say, they were overrun with "people who don't really live here." Rodeo Drive was no longer her place. It was for the tourists and the Middle Eastern money which she held accountable for the rash of ugly, residential architecture. But this was before that. When Morley Drug Store had a soda fountain and Pioneer Hardware sold sets of colored Pyrex bowls and the only ethnic cuisine anyone had ever heard of was Chinese at Ah Fong's restaurant.

Dad and I were walking by the stone pond where a flock of ducks and their offspring glided amongst shiny, green lily pads. He had let me climb through the twisted limbs of the massive trees that looked as if money had created them for the sole purpose of entertaining small, privileged white children.

We walked across Santa Monica boulevard to Nate  'n Al's for corn beef and dill pickles. There was the me with a tiny hand, holding onto my father and looking up at him and asking, "Are you having fun, Daddy?" It should have been him asking the very young me. He should have wondered if I had enjoyed tree climbing and feeding the ducks some crumbs from our Friday night Challah.

And when the car once again lurches forward, I remember returning to Nate 'n Al's so many years later as he shuffles with his Parkinson's. We finish lunch and he methodically removes his credit card to pay the bill. There is a bowl of 2 cent peppermint patties by the register. Instead I suggest he get one of the giant ones. He smiles impishly. "Your mother would never let me have one of these!" We walk outside, and he shuffles as he eats. The car is going forward and the roles don't feel reversed, just as they have always been.