When my father was in his early 70s, probably not too long before he died, I remember going to his house to go along with him and my mother to an event, not quite sure exactly which one or where we were headed. Since I was in my VW days and my car was hard to get into and not too spacious, we decided we’d take their car, a sedan with 4 doors. I was surprised when my daddy handed me the keys and I drove them to the event.

Daddy had macular degeneration which affected his peripheral vision and I’m sure that was the main reason why he felt like it would be safer for us all to travel with me driving instead of him. It didn’t seem that difficult for him to make this decision.

When my mother was asked by my brothers and I to give up her car keys, however, and told that we felt it was unsafe for her to continue driving, she resisted. My brother Kirk, and my sister Sherry before him, had ridden with my mother driving and both felt unsafe.

Mother had broken her leg and due to healthcare incompetence and her brave attitude not to complain to the hospital workers, the break wasn’t discovered right away which caused what could have been a simple procedure to set the break to be a surgery which shortened her leg at least 3 or 4 inches from the length of the other one. After this surgery, she had to wear a heavy special shoe which impaired not only her walking but her reaction time in handling the gas and brake pedals of her car.

Not only that, but because of the imbalance of her gait, she began walking stooped over, not fully upright, which created pain in her upper body. She had also become hearing impaired and we all wondered if she would be able to hear cars on the road near her or their horns warning her, or even sirens from emergency vehicles. Kirk and Ted both agreed with me that it was time to take away her car keys before she injured herself in an accident, or possibly cause injury to other drivers or pedestrians in her path. She was very unhappy to lose her independence, and it was a traumatic and monumentally sad for her.

I tried to tell her that she could still be independent…to call a taxi (this was before Lyft or Uber) and they could take her anywhere she wanted to go at any time she wanted to go, even if the 3 of us at the particular moment were unable to help her get to where she wanted to go. Always worried about money and expense, I tried to tell her that this would probably not be more costly than the upkeep and insurance and gas for her car.

She still resisted, and we discovered that she had tried to drive the car again after we had advised her not to. My brothers finally had to unhook a battery cable or something so that the car would not start if she tried to use it again, and we made up some story about getting it fixed when we had the time to deal with it, but we just could never find the time and I guess she finally accepted the fact that she no longer had a workable car but this did not make it easier for her.

As the nation deals with an aging president and his not too much younger challenger for the 2024 election and the discussion has been non-stop for a couple of weeks now about the abilities of older people, I have thought more and more about my Mother and Daddy and them giving up their car keys and what that meant to them.

The bright side is, though, at least for my children, this (keeping me from driving as I’ve set as a goal to live in places where public transportation is acceptable and owning a car is not something I ever want to do again) won’t be an issue for them with me.

As many have said, aging is a forward process, and although it may take detours, it does not ever take backward steps.