Phone Calls, Remote Controls and Aging Parents
My phone will ring some time in the next hour. It will be my Dad. He will be having a problem with his television. He will probably be pretty cross about it. He won't ask me to fix the problem. He will just blurt out "It's not doing anything." It's the same way a pre-schooler announces "I'm thirsty" instead of asking for a drink.
The calls started shortly after he and my stepmother moved into an assisted living facility last fall. My wife (AKA Wonder Woman) found a remote system designed especially for this set of circumstances. Via my iPhone, I can see and control my Dad's TV and his Amazon Fire Stick as if I were in the room. I can also look in on him via a camera or send text messages that display on the TV.
His primary issues are simple to fix. Sometimes he just has the wrong remote. He only needs the one for the Fire Stick, but he insists on holding on to the one for his Walmart television. They are both small and black. Although they are plainly labeled and Dad can read just fine, he can't tell them apart. His other frequent issue is a result of indiscriminate button pushing that changes the TV's input to something other than what it should be on. Cut off from his two best friends, Fox News and YouTube, he gets pretty edgy.
I have four siblings, but none of them live within a hundred miles of here. I'm a 15-minute drive away. I found myself at an appointment with a lawyer last year, where I was unexpectedly assigned power of attorney for all categories of my Dad's life, including health care decisions. He's not been declared incompetent by the court. He just can't be bothered to manage his affairs any longer.
My brothers and sisters all help out in other ways. They handled the estate sale we held to empty the huge house where he lived. My sister is dealing with the real estate people to sell it. The ones within driving distance come to see him regularly.
Wonder Woman is a CPA, so I haven't managed our finances since we got married, but now I'm having to keep track of a man who receives income from a combination of eleven different pensions, annuities and government benefit checks.
As a committed Trump voter, Dad tacitly supports cutting benefits for the poor and working class while receiving a VA disability pension in an amount that would blow your mind. He was in the Army for seven years (1967–1974), and that period of service over 50 years ago is paying off handsomely in his dotage. Because he MIGHT have been exposed to Agent Orange, every health problem he has is considered service-connected. He gets paid to have diabetes, never mind his diet.
We've never been close. Most of my life he's been uninterested in spending time with me or my kids, his grandchildren. He never saw any of us play a ball game, act in a play or graduate from high school.
I am absolutely unable to articulate why I spend hours out of my week making him as comfortable as I can. He hates where he lives, but my stepmother, his wife of 40 years, has to be there, in the memory care unit. She recognizes no one but him, and he spends time with her every day, brings her candy and makes sure she gets her meals. The services I perform are necessary. He has a very small group of friends who visit, but most of his social interactions are with family.
I loved my grandparents mightily and without reserve. In my mind, I rationalize that Dad is their son and that they would want me to do what I'm doing for him. That's enough motivation to keep me going. Besides, I don't come from a family who would turn their backs on anyone. If I weren't doing this, someone I love would have to. I have the time and the physical, if not always the mental, energy to handle it.
Besides, I owe my Dad. He has been a huge motivator for me to remain in close touch with my 40-plus-year-old kids and all of my grandchildren. They are all deserving of as much love as I can give them.
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