I have always been the child of old parents.

       I’ve grown accustomed to my peers’ shocked faces and open mouths when I tell them my mom and dad were forty-four and fifty-four, respectively, when I was born. I’m used to people telling me to “ask grandpa” if I can have something, and immediately knowing they mean my dad. A typical hike with my parents is slow and short, filled with pauses and rests, ending with a long nap. 

       None of these things bother me, because my parents gave me the best childhood they were capable of. But as I got older, so did they, and the list of things that their bodies and brains allowed them to do got shorter and shorter. So did my childhood. I never wished for my parents to be younger. That is, until they started racking up one incurable illness after another.

         I still remember when my parents told my siblings and I that my dad has cancer. My parents sat us down at the dining room table and told us the devastating news. I was thirteen and I wasn’t ready for this. As mature as I thought I was at that age, nothing could have prepared me for the feeling of dread that immediately surrounded me. My heart felt as though it was being squeezed, my lungs as if someone had let go of an untied balloon. I searched the faces of my family for a crack of a smile, or a guilty look. Something, anything, that told me that this was a cruel joke. Nothing. Every face in the room was emotionless, no one knowing how to react. Up until that point, we had lived very sheltered, privileged lives. I held back tears until my dad was finished explaining; I was in complete denial, unable to even say the words out loud, only echoing them repeatedly in my head. My dad, ever the optimist, tried to downplay the gravity of the news, but I was already imagining the worst. The words “my dad has cancer,” have been scratched permanently behind my eyes, reminding me every time I close them. 

       Even now, it’s difficult and uncomfortable to force the words out of my mouth, the thought that I’d imagined that heartbreaking night lingering within. Sometimes, it’s hard for me to tell the difference between what’s real and what’s something I’ve conjured in my anxiety-ridden brain. But for the rest of my life, I’ll remember how defeated my strong-willed father looked as he suffered the effects of chemotherapy and radiation, and the first of many tears I watched him shed in my short life. Then I’ll remember that it’s real.

     Two years after his cancer diagnosis, my dad was given another life-altering prognosis of Crohn’s Disease, growing more exhausted and less approachable. A year later, my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, something that seemed inevitable and impossible at the same time. She became unbearable to be around, unable to hold a conversation without losing her train of thought. With each diagnosis it became harder to believe that everything would be okay. The words, “My mom has Alzheimer’s,” has joined “My dad has cancer,” in plaguing my thoughts.

        Three times in three years I have been faced with the possibility of losing a parent, all before I turned seventeen. Three times in three years I have questioned reality, confused on whether I had imagined the agonizing truths. Three times in three years I have felt overwhelmingly angry at my parents for choosing to have me at the advanced ages they did. Angry at God, because why would He threaten the lives of both of my parents? Guilty, because maybe it was some kind of karma for something I’d done, and God was punishing me. And completely and utterly hopeless, because there was no way we could possibly overcome this. I desperately wish I could say that the last three years were just in my head, and that my parents are the same people they were before seniority. But most days, my dad can’t get out of bed, can’t find it in himself to help me with anything, and my mom can’t remember her name, let alone how to finish a sentence. Truthfully, my parents are shells of the outgoing, funny, happy people they used to be. And at sixteen years old, so am I.