Just one tender stroke

Rereading my last post it looks like my attempt to put Dad back in the box of his bungalow. But Dad wouldn’t go back so easily.

He said he wanted to return home and he did get discharged there from hospital eventually. But, I wonder if it was what he really wanted or whether he thought it was what he was expected to want. A lot of pressure is put on older people by the caring professions to seek to live an “independent” life. Children as well, I guess, generally want their parents to behave as if they are going to live for ever. The truth is Dad was scared of going home and it was a hard struggle for him when he got there. When you are overweight and have very limited mobility even the floor is a scary place and gravity is your enemy, trying to put you there, unable to get up again, at every opportunity.

For a while Dad experimented with simply giving up the fight and on two occasions he got me or his friend Bernie to lower him to the floor, complaining hysterically that his knee wouldn’t hold him. At that stage there is nothing to be done but to call an ambulance to get help putting him back in a chair. The last time this happened I looked at Dad lying on the carpet like a beached walrus and struggled to control my anger and frustration. I felt sure there was a wilful element to this “giving up”, partly caused by him having had too much to drink that lunchtime and at that moment I saw only too clearly how old people can get abused by those that are supposed to be "caring" for them.

Anyway, I called the ambulance, stressing that this was not a serious emergency and then joined Dad on the carpet to wait. He talked about how he wished he was dead, partly because that was how he felt and partly to manipulate me into feeling sorry for him. Then quite instinctively he reached out and gently stroked my hair. Just one tender stroke. And my heart bled for him and me and the relationship between us that never quite made it.

So now I am home again in Puglia, thinking about that tiny moment and whether it has changed anything.