Time to Spare

Lately, I’ve been getting back in touch with friends I miss seeing. Last week, I met a bunch of my former fellow students at the diner for a catch-up. They’re still at the school I’ve taken a leave of absence from due to my recent surgery, and I sucked up all the gossip they could throw down like a top of the line Hoover. Ironically, I’ve been making better progress in my online program than I had been at school, so I extended my leave of absence until the summer. The school administration was not pleased when I told them, but we all did a lot of smiling anyway.

Then, earlier this week, I went Asian dining with two longtime friends whose children my kids grew up with. All our kids are pretty grown now, either in college or beyond, and it amuses me to think that Daughter once baby sat for these families. For many years now, both these friends have been caregivers for aging parents, now hitting their nineties. One remarked that she has been taking care of her mother longer than her mother spent raising her. Both have children in college, and parents too advanced in age to be living alone, but who steadfastly resist doing otherwise. My friends work full-time and have husbands who work full-time. Their lives are in high gear round-the-clock. They weren’t complaining, just saying how it is, that you care for your loved ones. You carry the ball. And whatever price gets paid, you find out later.

Sitting back and listening at dinner, it struck me that the two generations we look after in our middle years are like two sides of the same coin. Our kids go to college on the promise of a solid future, but when they graduate with staggering student loans, there aren’t really jobs available. Our parents have medical science to thank for their lengthy lives, but then struggle to be independent with less and less ability, and more and more medication. It’s all an elderly person can do these days to keep from tumbling into the Medicare donut hole and the great unknown that lies beyond.

It reminds me of the space program back in the sixties. A gazillion dollars to reach another planet and then what? Yes, we can repeat our triumphs in a new galaxy, but what good if we clone our mistakes as well? The human life cycle is clearly on the move. I’ll be 55 next month, and I’m training for a new career. As a baby boomer, I wonder how much I’m innocently adding to the future imbalance. We are an inquisitive and adaptable species. Maybe one of my peers will invent the next big thing: The University of Assisted Living.

Helen Levitt, one of the giants of 20th century photography, died last month at 95. New Yorkers have long revered her unique gift for capturing moments in time on their city streets. In her memory, and in celebration of another photographer whose original works seem at times to parallel Ms. Levitt’s vision, I have chosen some of my favorite photos from Daughter’s Portfolio to appear here once again.