Reflections on father’s day
On the one hand, I feel good that I organized a brunch outing with my dad (97), my mother (90), and my son and husband on this Father’s Day. I know how lucky I am to still have my parents, to be one of the few my age who can say their mother and father are still living independently and in relative good health.
On the other hand, I am throat-slittingly depressed when I have to spend time with my parents anymore, especially at a restaurant.
Between my mother’s near total deafness and their combined animal-like eating habits, I end up in a state of utter frustration and embarrassment. Attempting to communicate with my mother has devolved into a one-way shouting match with constant repetition of a few simple questions and almost total lack of comprehension… not conversation. I usually just give up trying and then feel guilty for my impatience. She recedes into a shell of silence that only makes me sadder and more guilty. My father, who has less and less dexterity and feeling in his fingers, ends up wearing more of his meal than he consumes. And then there’s the inevitable “Ruthi, where’s the bathroom?” which signals a hurried trip to the ladies room that now, more often than not, results in an accident and my mother soiling herself in some very visible way.
This rant reeks of self-pity and lacks compassion, doesn’t it? But the truth is, they do manage to still live alone, more or less totally independent of me, and don’t want it any other way. But how much longer can they sustain their lifestyle? Dad, the cook of the duo, is getting progressively more feeble and has had some falls. His fingers are bandaged from ever more frequent contact with burning hot pans. Mom is great at taking care of her doctoring, the bill paying and still knits blankets for the Salvation Army and scarves for her grandchildren, but she has macular degeneration and a host of other ailments that are taking their toll. And then there’s the incontinence. She refuses to wear more protective undergarments and seems to be in denial about the severity of her condition. Just like her hearing…if there’s a lifestyle change that requires spending money or adding a time consuming process to her routine, then forget about it.
At one point, they conceded to having a cleaning lady come in and help with the bathrooms, dusting and vacuuming in their disheveled apartment. But that went by the wayside pretty quickly. They who cannot see or smell the need for cleaning in that wretched place decided there was really nothing a third party could do for them, so they let her go.
I truly don’t know what to do with them. Leave them to their own devices and let nature and/or circumstances decide their fate? Or try to intervene more imposingly and force them to accept some kind of outside help? That didn’t work too well when we tried it years ago when they still lived in St. Petersburg. I’m still getting reprimanded for “forcing” them to move to Sarasota, not to mention having the audacity to send in social services to evaluate their living conditions and capabilities, which have only since declinced further.
Happy Father’s Day. A day that reminds me how much I have to worry about my father.
