Dad Sitting
I am currently Dad sitting. It is an interesting concept and one I don’t think I could do for more than the fortnight that I have. He is a very intelligent man but at 88, he is wearing out. His routines are fixed. His ability to cope with change difficult and he is facing one of the biggest changes of his life.
The reason for my sojourn with my father: Mum fainted and broke her Tibia at the ankle area. She’s in hospital, being moved to rehab this weekend. Dad requires 24 hour supervision. He goes into the local residential home tomorrow. His stay anything from a month to three depending on how well Mum’s rehab goes.
This is the first time they have been parted for so long. To ease the separation they’ve been dragged kicking and screaming into the era of the smart phone. Teaching them to use WhatsApp… let’s not go there. Frustrating is not a word and I’m 32 years into a teaching career. But at least it will mean they can see each other and spend some time together during the day.
We’ve also got Dad a laptop so he can carry on with the things he does on it. Genealogy mainly. He will not use ancestry.com for religious reasons. It’s led to a family row (not with me) but with his former collaborator. i pointed out that a good historian never uses one source for information. That issue aside, he tells me today he’s got keepass and so downloading that will mean the passwords he has stored on the mainframe will be accessible from his laptop. So while I cannot, yet, do my Josh Lyman impersonation, it does mean I can start thinking of bagels and muffins.
More than a Cat 