Randi Kreiss

The cane mutiny, or at sea with Mom and Dad

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Here we are, the original band of four, minus the spinoffs, minus the offshoots, the four of us who lived together from 1947 to 1972. The Bromberg family, the nuclear family, grown up, and in Mom and Dad’s case, grown quite old and frail. They look so central-casting old, I almost think they’re kidding, that they’ll leap up and look sharp and dust the fake white powder out of their hair, throw down their canes and connect, really connect, rather than keep drifting away.

My sister, Meryl, and I asked Mom and Dad how they wanted to celebrate their 70th anniversary, and they said they wished they could take a cruise. We couldn’t entice any other family members, so we decided to make it happen ourselves. We planned it many months ago, when the folks were more ambulatory, but we didn’t want to change the plan. We left two Saturdays ago, sailing from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., with an itinerary that would take us to Nassau, St. Thomas, St. Maarten, two days at sea and then back to Fort Lauderdale.

Choices were few this time of year, so we landed on the Oasis, a 4,000-plus-passenger vessel featuring a deck-long Broadway promenade, a Central Park, a Boardwalk. The overwhelmingness of it all set us back right away. Just too much to process, too difficult to find our cabins, way too hard to push the two wheelchairs we got for the folks. What were we thinking?

How often do 60-something “kids” get to travel with their 92- and going-on-97-year-old parents? Right. And for good reason. This is a bizarre experience. We feel lucky, but we’re confounded by the situation.

I think Meryl and I were fantasizing that we would somehow be traveling with the parents we used to know who were sharp and funny and focused. Those parents were replaced a long time ago by these two folks, who have increasing difficulty hearing and seeing and walking. The role reversal is 100 percent complete.

My mom’s first comment when she saw her cabin was, “I don’t know why you spent so much money for two cabins. We could have slept in one. There’s plenty of room in the bed.”

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