Just out of the holidays and into the flu season. Every year my mother and I have the same argument: “Why do I need to take a flu shot? I didn’t take a flu shot when I was younger.” Sometimes she says she’d never taken a flu shot before she came to Pennsylvania.

You know how with family members you have the same arguments over and over again? If you don’t remember, my mother is 92 years old.

So I always reply back with the same answer, “Yes, Mommy, we have been to the moon, black people can sit anywhere on the bus, and I’m calling you from a cell phone. Some things do change for the better.”

I am in what they now call the Sandwich Generation - where I’m taking care of an elderly parent and raising a teenager. I think that sandwich is a BLT. Because I feel beat up, lost, and tired. A typical weekend in my house is trying to motivate my mother to go out to dinner, and trying to motivate my son to do his homework early.

I might have said this before, but when I was a young child I wanted to always remember what it’s like to be a child so that when I got to be a grown-up I’d know how to deal with children. So if I live to be 92 like my mother, I’m going to remember how it feels for my son to try to get me to do something I don’t want to do. But he’ll probably be mad at me for getting a tattoo at 90 because I’ve always wanted to be one of the old guys in the retirement home with a fresh tattoo.

But I think we wouldn’t be good at taking care of someone if someone hadn’t taken good care of us when we needed it, when we were younger, or hoped to be older. So the next time you’re running off to do something for someone else, give yourself a hand, because you know your turn is coming soon. (Or coming again.)

In closing, I just want to say thank you for all the Happy New Year and Happy Holidays cards and well-wishes I received.

Everybody stay warm, and I’ll talk to you next month.

- Kevin S. Nash

Photo details: Harcum College’s Cohen Dental Center, Bryn Mawr, PA.