What have I learned most recently? Have you an aging parent with short-term memory tremors? Well I have! It can be most disconcerting. It can be a painful experience on a couple of levels. One is obvious that’s the one where you have to listen to the same conversation and questions over and over.
You can find yourself losing your patience and tolerance. Anger is the other by-product that is followed by guilt that you actually got angry.
But I think that I have found a method to circumvent a big chunk of emotional upset. What I do is first track the questions and stories are and commit them to memory. Next I repeat the same questions and questions and give the same answers in well-paced intervals, before my dad has a chance to ask them again. I now empty my negativity towards him and give him exactly what he needs
Re enforcing what his memory is lacking. Now I am free from impatience and intolerance and best of all anger and guilt. This now makes my visit a positive one and I can spend more time with his long-term memory, which seems intact and I learn things I never knew as a child. And I can rediscover a deeper love for my father. A parlor trick maybe but an effective one. There are no lies just repetitions and I can live with that.
2 comments:
So eloquent...Glad to hear/read that you are finding a way to deal with your dad...I know that your words here will help me somewhat deal with my mother when she starts to 'push my buttons'...
FYI: the font you used this time was slightly difficult to read, but the enrty was wonderful,thank you BD!
I have reconciled myself that it is no time to try to strike back at him for his past perceived misdeeds.
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