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“The more things change, the more they stay the same” is a notion at the heart of our days. Nearly every generation seems to have a musician, theologian or philosopher who muses on this in some memorable way.

The biblical writer of Ecclesiastes asked in an exasperated tone, “Is there nothing new under the sun?!” In his own French journal in 1849, Jean Baptiste Alphonse-Karr finally worded the observation the way you just read it in the previous paragraph. The 80s rock group, Bon Jovi, even had a song called “The More Things Change.” It riffed on this.  

There is an understandable case to be made that really nothing changes even though technology, medicine, entertainment and culture never stop changing. New advances are earned through hard work. Discoveries are constantly being made. 

Still, the idea is that underneath it all, the human experience feels more constant and timeless. Very little that matters truly changes. 

As I write, I sit overlooking what was the backyard of my childhood. I’m at a table roughly where our carport was when I was a kid living here. I came to this spot because the public Wi-Fi signal where my mother lives is stronger near the administrative offices. 

You see, the short of it is that my childhood home was in the family for thirty-five years. Progress was sweeping through my little town, and my wife and I had long since moved to another state. My parents sold the farm and bought a house nearby. Fifteen years passed when they announced they were moving into the residential retirement community built on our old place. 

That’s right. Today, my mother’s street address is exactly the same as it was when we all lived there. 

Thus, I pulled up this morning in a rented car, since I had to fly into the city. I punched in my phone number and the security system at the retirement community printed out an identification sticker. The printer sits at the lobby desk, roughly where my brother’s room used to be. 

If I want to visit my mother in her apartment near our old garden spot, or eat with her near what used to be our hog lot, I have to wear the security sticker so that everyone understands I belong. It feels weird.

I get the case the philosophers make. The more things change, the more they stay the same. I understand. 

But today I am awash in a whirlwind of logistics and grief set in motion by change. My Dad is no longer with us. At ninety-six, my mother’s body and mind both grow feeble. My brother and I have converged here to aid in some of the transition from independent living to assisted care. 

Her judgment and decision-making are not as sharp as they once were. There are some things we can negotiate with her on. Her denial and understandable efforts to keep things the same cause a discussion now and then. 

However, there are other things that my older sibling and I discuss among ourselves, maintain a unified front and then put our feet down about. That’s where we are now.

We apologize to her and tell her we understand. But we explain that there are good reasons she can’t any longer have things exactly the way she wants them. You see, what I am pensive about today is all the ways in which things sometimes change and they aren’t at all the same anymore. 

I’m grateful we still have her with us. But I’m also sad at what time has done to this once healthy body and clear mind. In younger years running our household, she was a quiet force that made all our lives possible. 

Even as she neared ninety, I could call her up and get her to remind me how to get around a downtown Atlanta traffic jam in the days before Waze. Now we boys are having to guide and protect.  

I can be mindful that we are certainly far from the first who have ever experienced such a thing. We know that. This is simply our turn. This is our turn to draw deeply from life’s well and be forced to drink the sometimes bitter waters of change. 

If every family is blessed enough to have one or more loved ones go anywhere near a century in age, they will probably walk in our steps. Still, this hurts. No, sometimes things change and they simply … change. If you’ve walked these steps, I see you.

DR. CHARLES QUALLS is senior pastor at Franklin Baptist Church. Contact him at 757-562-5135.