Selfish and shortsighted

My father spent last week in the hospital. Then on Saturday he moved to some kind of nursing care facility, because the hospital needed the bed and he really didn’t have to be in the ICU any more. But the doctor said he wouldn’t release my dad to go home unless my mother had some help. She can’t lift him by herself, and he might fall again.

 

The boys and I drove down to visit him on Sunday. He was weaker and thinner than I have ever seen him, and he drifted off to sleep at odd moments. Actually he slept a lot.

 

He clearly hated the facility where he was staying. He shared a room with a man who needed a breathing apparatus, and murmured that the noise of the apparatus made him want to kill the man. He complained about the food; when they brought him lunch he ate one small bite of the roast beef and then turned up his nose at it and instead ate the canned fruit and potatoes. Wait, … isn’t he diabetic? Isn’t it important for him to concentrate on protein and low glycemic foods instead of starch and sugared fruit? For that matter, didn’t he pointedly refuse the insulin shot they tried to give him just before lunch? Well yeah … but none of that seemed to matter. He just didn’t like the way they had prepared the roast beef, so that was that.

 

He fell asleep after his lunch so the boys and I went to get some lunch of our own. We came back, stayed with him for a little bit, and then he dozed off again. So we left. Brother and his girlfriend arrived later that night.

 

Monday night Brother called to tell me that they and my mother had signed him out of the care facility and taken him home. No, he hadn’t done any of the physical therapy he was supposed to do to get his strength back, but he was unhappy there so it was the right thing to do. I asked, Does Mother have any help with him? Yes, we are staying there for now to help out. And he’s so much happier here!

 

Well yes, I’m sure he’s happier to be in his own home. In an e-mail today, Brother told me how much better Father seemed, and it doesn’t surprise me. It’s even good news that he’s doing better … right? So why am I feeling so sour and curmudgeonly?

 

Not long ago … I feel like it was only a year, though I can’t remember for sure … my parents were thinking about moving into one of these facilities for old people where you get to live independently in your own apartment for as long as you can; but then when you get ill or infirm and need help, they offer you help. I have no idea what my mother thought of the place, because Father torpedoed the idea. There might even have been good reasons for torpedoing it – I don’t know. Everything has pros and cons. What I do know is that his reasons for rejecting the place were very bad reasons. His reasons were selfish and shortsighted. So far as I could tell, in fact, what he objected to was their no-smoking policy. Only my father doesn’t smoke. He won’t let other people smoke in his house. But if some clerk sitting behind a desk tells him that he’s not allowed to smoke, … why then, by God, he’s going to come home in a high dudgeon, drag out his pipe, and stuff it with the smelliest tobacco he can lay his hands on. Serves them right for daring to tell him what he can or can’t do!

 

Only … honestly … what the fuck? Do you really honestly care about this? Really?

 

Who knows? Maybe he cared and maybe not. Maybe he just wanted to preserve his independence and damn the consequences.

 

Only … gosh, it sure would be convenient now if they really had moved into this place. Then Mother wouldn’t have to look after him so closely. Then Brother and his girlfriend wouldn’t have to give up whatever else they might otherwise be doing (like holding jobs, just for instance) to wait hand and foot on Father. There would be a safety net to catch him.

 

But there isn’t, because he got indignant over some lowly clerk telling him he’s not allowed to do something he normally doesn’t give a shit about doing anyway.

 

I repeat that there might have been good reasons to reject moving into this community. I really don’t know enough about it. But I do know that my father’s stated reasons were selfish and shortsighted.

 

Of course, that’s just who he is. He’s spent his whole life being selfish and shortsighted … why expect him to change now? And in a sense I don’t. It’s just too bad, though, when the costs of his selfish decisions have to be paid by somebody else. By Mother and Brother and his girlfriend. Because they are – quite clearly – the ones who are now paying for my father’s unwillingness to think ahead, or to accept minor restrictions in order to buy major benefits.

 

And so I find myself disgruntled. Again.

 

This happens a lot when I think about my dad.

 

Sigh.