My Heart is so Heavy

I am sitting here with shaky hands, a pounding heart and tears in my eyes.  I just watched as my mom fell out of their truck as Dad was trying to help her climb into it.  Dad and I were helpless to help her.

You see, my mom is extremely overweight.  I can't even venture a guess at how much she weighs.  Carrying too much weight for most of her adult life has destroyed her knees.  She has no cartilage left in them, so they are bone rubbing on bone.  Both knees.  Extremely painful.  She has developed sciatica in one of her hips as a result of her bad knees and strain from the weight.  She can barely walk.  One of her legs can hardly even move anymore.   They won't operate, because she is too high risk for complications, because of her weight.

Dad is 70+ years old.  His back has never been the same since he broke it falling out of a tree 8 or 9 years ago.  And he has problems with his own knees.  It is getting nearly impossible for him to assist my mom with stairs and such anymore.   Dad can see that. 

Mom cannot.  She is in denial. 

Dad knows that they can't keep travelling.  There are getting to be too many falls.  And one of these times one or both of them is going to get seriously hurt. 

I am so sad.  Sad, because Dad isn't ready to give up travelling.  Sad, because Mom knows that and thinks that she can keep pushing herself even though she is pretty much immobile.  And the pushing causes her pain.  They are both hurting.  Physically, yes.  But, their hearts hurt the most. 

I know what they need to do.  I am sure that if they are truly being honest with themselves, they too know what they need to do.  But, the worrisome thing is that neither will admit it.  Scarier still is that I think one of them (or both) is going to get seriously hurt before they will admit it, when they will no longer have a choice.