Getting Old Is Not For Wimps (Part Two)

When my Dad thought his radio was broken, and all it turned out to be was that the volume control knob was turned down, it made me laugh... but it made me sad, too.
     There was a time when there was nothing my Dad couldn't build or couldn't fix. When he was twelve years old--eighty-one years ago!--he used work on his uncle's car for the opportunity to drive it around town. For all I know, even at twelve, he was trying to woo the fairer sex with a ride in his jalopy. When he was in the Army during World War II, and stationed in the Philippines, he built a washing machine for his platoon. He used a metal barrel, a jeep... and his own personal smarts. I don't know if there was even such a thing as a washing machine back in the 40's, but my Dad had one, the one he built. I have a picture of it. He's standing next to it with a big smile on his face, proud as all get out. Years later, after he was married and I was old enough to pay attention, I remember seeing him take apart the vacuum cleaner. He took it apart, piece by piece, and laid those pieces on a tarp in the order he removed them. That way, he knew in what order what was attached to what. The knee bone's connected to the thigh bone, as the song goes.
     But when you get older, things begin to fail. Your vision. Your hearing. Your, um, tallywacker. (Ahem, so I'm told.) Your thinking process, which used to be crystal clear, starts to become muddled and, like your vision, blurry.
     I remember watching a documentary by Desmond Morris called The Human Animal. Desmond Morris is a zoologist who studies humans as if they're animals. One of his observations was how, when we're young, we can almost defy gravity. We run and jump and practically fly through the air. but when we get old, that same gravity which we used to ignore, grabs us hard and drags us down. Walking is an effort. Getting up from the couch impossible. When you're a kid you can fly off the couch like a bullet fired from a gun. Zero to sixty in less than a fraction  of a second. When you're old, you develop a fondness for the phrase, "Help me up." I'm not saying my dad can't get off the couch on his own. He can. Eventually. It takes some grunting and groaning and rocking back and forth, but he does it.
     (For the record, I don't try to help my Dad up from the couch until he asks for help. "What?" he'll practically yell, "you don't think I can get off the couch on my own?" A few seconds after that, he'll forget that he just yelled at me, hold out a hand, and say, "Help me up.")
     My Dad will be walking from the kitchen to the great room, and if my grandson is running around around him, my Dad will stop for dear life. He gets nervous when his great-grandson is around. All that running and jumping can only mean one thing: "Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!" My Dad will stop, hang on to the edge of the kitchen counter, and wait for the human tornado that is my grandson to pass.
     Why is it that as we get older, we get so unsteady on our feet? The slightest nudge can knock us over. Why is it that the simplest of problems that require the minimum of mental effort to solve--like turning the volume control knob on the radio--becomes the mental equivalent of climbing Mount Everest?
     I like to people watch, and it always saddens me to watch old people walk down the street. They move so slowly it almost seems as if they're traveling in a different time stream. Maybe they are. A time stream slower that the one the rest of the world travels in. Kids, on the other hand, seem to move along in a faster time stream. Looking at my grandson run and jump is like looking at my TV set--when my Dad's not busy wasting his time watching baseball, that is--when I'm fast-forwarding through the commercials. Looking at my Dad, on the other hand, is like watching a documentary where those underwater guys with those big, round metal helmets on their heads walk around the bottom of the ocean.
     Getting old is not for wimps, my friends. Every morning my Dad goes on his walks around the neighborhood, rain or shine. I think he thinks as long as he keeps walking he'll live forever. Sadly, that's not the case. His 98 year-old brother died just a few days before Christmas this year, and the wife of the pastor of our church died just a few days after. She was 62. But every morning, in the heat or the cold, in the dry or the wet, he'll force himself to walk.
     "Dad, it's raining," we'll tell him. Doesn't matter.
     "Dad, it's hot," we'll warn. He doesn't care.
     To him, walking means he's alive. Of course, he's walking slower these days. And not as far. And his aches and pains don't completely go away. But he's alive.
     And that's what we have in store for us, if we're lucky enough to live that long. "Lucky," hmm...
     One man's dream is another man's nightmare.
     I guess.
 
 

Raising My Father 

JimDuchene.blogspot.com

RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com

@JimDuchene

 

Getting Old Sure Stinks (Part One)

I'm at the kitchen counter enjoying a nice hot cup of coffee, reading this month's issue of the AARP magazine. Yeah, I'm that old. My wife is cleaning the counter tops. My Dad walks in. I look over the top of my magazine. He has a look on his face. I recognize that look. He has a problem. And it's about to become my problem.
     "Ahhh," he says. Smack, smack, smack! Click, click, click! My Dad makes these smacking noises when he talks. Even when he doesn't talk. Sometimes when he just sits. Now he's started making clicking noises as well. "Hmm, I don't know. I just don't know."
     "Don't know what, Dad?" my wife makes the mistake of asking him. She has a heart of gold, she does. My Dad shakes his head, and lets out a weak laugh.
     "I don't know about those house cleaners you have," he tells my wife, seeing as she's the only one listening to him. "You know those house cleaners?"
     "The house cleaners?" my wife asks, trying to encourage him on to his point.
     "Yeah, ahhh, they broke my radio. I don't know what they did, but they broke it."
     "The house cleaners broke your radio?"
     "Yeah, I was trying to hear my music, but it's not working. I've done all I can to make it work, but it's broken. I turned it on and off. I changed the station several times. But nothing works. I'm telling you, they broke it."
     "Are you sure the house cleaners broke your radio?"
     "Who else? It was working before, now it's not. I moved it around. Placed it on the desk. Back to the night stand. They broke it, all right. The house cleaners are hard on my stuff, you don't know how hard." Smack, smack, smack. "You might have to buy me another one." Click!
     My wife looks at me. I keep looking at my magazine.
     "Honey, why don't you look at Dad's radio?" my wife pretends to ask me, but she's really telling me.
     "What?" I pretend to not hear, but she knows I'm only pretending. She turns back to my Dad.
     "Dad, do you want your son to look at it?"
     "What?"
     "Do you want your son to look at it?"
     "Look at what?"
     "Your radio, Dad? Do you want your son to look at it?"
     "Do I want my son to look at it?"
     "Yes."
     "What?"
     "Yes."
     "Why would I want him to look at it. It's broken, I've just told you."
     I continue to drink my coffee, not saying anything, keeping my eyes on the magazine. My wife walks over and stands next to me. She gives me a nudge. And then she gives me a bigger nudge.
     I ignore her.
     "Your son's not doing anything," she tells him. "He can look at it, if you want."
     "What's the point?"
     "And if he can't do anything with it, we'll go buy you a new one."
     "Wellll," my Dad says. "Ahhh," he continues, smack, smack, smack. "Why bother?" he finally says in a language I can understand. "I told you, it's not working, but if he wants to look at it, that's fine with me. I don't know what he can do with it. If I can't fix it, I don't know what he can do with it."
     My wife whispers in my ear: "Honey, go check on your Dad's radio."
     I slowly put down my cup of coffee. It's still reasonably hot, but when I get back it won't be. I get up. My wife mouths the words thank you. I give her a big exaggerated sigh--SIGH!--and then walk out of the peace and comfort of my own home, to the little father-in-law house we have toward the front of our property. My father is following right behind me, mumbling. Whatever he's mumbling about, I can't understand. Everything else, I'm not listening to.
     I stop just in front of his door. I wait for him to let me in. We walk over to his bedroom, and I go over to the radio that's sitting on his night stand. Hmmm, I notice, it's nicer than the one I have in my room.
     "I tell you," my dad tells me, smack, smack, smack. "It's broken. The house cleaners broke it." Smack, smack, click! "I already tried to fix it, but I couldn't get it to work. I don't know why your wife wants you to look at it."
    I'm thinking no kidding. What I really want to do is not mess with the whole thing, and just go buy him a new radio, but maybe one not quite as nice as the one I'm stuck with. But anyway...
     ...there I am. Standing in front of his radio. Just looking at it. My Dad still going on behind me.
     And then I notice something.
     I slowly reach down, turn the little knob for the volume to the right... and music magically comes on.
     "What did you do to it?" my Dad asks me, surprised.
     I turn the knob a little more, and the music gets louder.
     "Turn it down," my Dad says. "I don't like it that loud."
     No "thank you." No "hey, you fixed it." No "you're the greatest."
     "I'm glad I could fix it, Dad," I tell him, and then go back to the wife and cup of coffee both waiting for me back in my house. I'll just leave with him wondering how I did it.
     As I leave, all I hear is smack, smack, smack! Click, click, click!
     When I get back to the kitchen, my wife asks me how it went. I tell her what was wrong, and she just shakes her head. She doesn't say anything, but we're both thinking the same thing.
     Getting old sure stinks.
     
     

Raising My Father

RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com

JimDuchene.blogspot.com

@JimDuchene

    

It's The Little Things

It's not the big things that you drive you nuts... it's the little things.
     When I first asked my 93 year-old father to move in with me and my family, I knew that there would be a period of adjustment. What I didn't know was just how long that period of adjustment would be. Here it is, years later, and I'm still adjusting.
     My father? He's doing just fine.
     My father had been the head of his household well into his 80's. Myself, I've been in charge of my own life since I turned 18, when I put what little I remembered from school about geography to use and went to college out of state.
     As a kid, I learned early on that no one was allowed to touch my father's morning newspaper until he was finished reading it. And he took a looong time reading it.
     "Pop," I would ask him, "can I have the comics?"
     "No," he would always answer. My father was a firm believer in brevity.
     "Why not?"
     "Because I'm not done with it yet."
     It didn't matter that he never read the comics, or that I would be done with it by the time he was ready to peruse it for himself, but Dear Blabby was featured in the same section of the newspaper that the comics were featured in, and he liked to read about other people's problems. He couldn't believe that some people were so willing to hang out their dirty laundry to dry where everybody could see.
     Myself, I'm not so strict. If any of my kids want to read the newspaper with me, well, I'm just happy that they like to read and enjoy being in my company.
     However, when my father first moved in with me, the newspaper quickly became a point of contention between the two of us, because I enjoy reading the paper first thing in the morning, too. But, if he gets to the paper before I do, he's like a dog guarding his bone. Grrr...
     Like I said, it's one of those little things that drives me nuts.
     How do I deal with it? Well, to tell you that story, I first have to tell you this story: When I was about 12 years-old, and prone to overestimating my abilities, we went on a family vacation to the beach.
     "Don't go too far," my mother warned me.
     Did I listen? Of course not. I was 12 and I knew everything.
     Needless to say, I swam out farther than I should have, and when I tried to swim back I noticed that for every three feet I swam forward, the waves would pull me back four. It didn't matter how hard I swam, I kept being pulled further and further back into the ocean. If I were pulled back any further, I'd have ended up being just another face on a milk carton. Oh, sure, I could have yelled for help, but that would have been embarrassing. Thinking back on it now, I wonder how many swimmers have drowned because they were too red-faced to cry out for help?
     But that wasn't what was on my mind when I was treading water, desperately trying to make it back to dry land. It didn't look good. My arms and legs were giving out, and I was getting nowhere fast. Did I survive?
     Well, I'm writing this story, aren't I?
     What to do? What to do?
     "Use the brain God gave you!" I could imagine my father chastising me.
     And that's exactly what I did, I used the brain God gave me. I swam with the ocean when the waves were moving forward, toward the beach, and when the waves would move back toward the open sea, I stopped swimming and rested. I made it back to shore eventually, but my arms and legs were trembling from exhaustion. I made it back because I decided to stop fighting the waves and worked with them instead.
     And that's what I decided to do with my father, himself a force of nature. I would work with him, instead of fight against him.
     So now, on those mornings when I get to the newspaper first, I try to be gracious. I offer my father the sections I'm not reading. On the mornings when my father gets to the newspaper before I do, I choose not to argue or get angry, because it is a choice, after all. Instead, I choose to be patient. Why ruin everybody's day?
     My father is 93 years-old. If one of his only pleasures in life is having the morning newspaper all to himself... I can live with that. And some mornings my father will even ask me if I want the comics.
     I guess he's learned a few things, too.
  

  

Raising My Father

@JimDuchene

JimDuchene.blogspot.com

RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com

                   

Imagine That

When I was a kid I must have driven my parents crazy.
     When they took me to the store, I was always asking them to buy me something. Spiderman comic books. The Man From UNCLE camera that turned into a gun.
     And candy.
     I was always asking for candy.
     "You'll ruin your teeth!" my mother would warn me.
     I'd think to myself, "If I can't have candy, what's the point of having good teeth?"
     This was before I discovered girls, and how they had the annoying habit of preferring guys with good dental hygiene.
     I remember one Christmas, when I was about ten-years-old, I pestered my parents for a chemistry set that was probably more expensive than they could afford, but, on Christmas morning... there it was.
     Did I play with it?
     Not even once.
     Cut to the present. My mother's been dead for a few years now, my father lives with me and my family, and we're at Costco. Costco is a large warehouse store along the lines of a Sam's or a Price Club, where you don't just buy one thing, you buy a lot of one thing.
     My father usually goes with my wife, and they usually come back with a lot of something we don't need. Courtesy of my father. One time he wanted a box containing 48 corn dogs, and my wife bought it for him. She always does.
     He ate one.
     The rest have taken up space in our freezer ever since.
     This time I go with them. He wanders around close by. He picks up a pack of white tube socks. Inspects them. Looks at me. Puts them back. In another aisle he looks at the Rogaine. My father's hair has thinned a bit, but he doesn't need it. He looks over at me. Back at the Rogaine. And then puts it back.
     Same with the gourmet cheese.
     We're at the frozen foods section. He finds something he likes. A box of 120 little frozen cream puff balls. Enough for a small wedding. A small wedding that I'd be paying for. He looks up. Sees me. Looks around for my wife. She's not there. She's at the far end of the aisle.
     There's only me.
     "These are really good," he tells me in a just-making-conversation kind of way. He's never eaten one before in his life. "I wonder how much they are."
     My father looks at the box. Turns it around in his hands. Reads the back.
     "It's all natural," he says.
     He looks down the aisle, where he sees my wife turning the corner, moving away from us. She's the one he usually asks when he wants something. Let me take that back, he doesn't ask. He just drops whatever item that catches his fancy into our grocery cart for my wife to pay for.
     My father stands there looking at the box of cream puffs in his hands.
     There's a long pause. Finally...
     "Son," he says, "do you think I can have this?"
     Imagine that.
     A father having to ask his son for something at the grocery store. My father has never asked me for anything before in his life. I think about the chemistry set he bought me that I never used.
     "Sure, dad," I tell him. "Put them in the cart."
     Now what am I going to do with 120 cream puffs?
        
   

Raising My Father

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