Anguish of telling your frail father: Sorry, my children come first
Selfish — or unflinchingly honest? One tortured son describes the . . .
SOME DAYS are uneventful. Companionable, even. Dad will call, we’ll go out for a curry. He will talk about his schooldays. He’s peaceful. Other days aren’t so calm. He’ll call, in a panic about the remote control that’s run out of batteries or about his fear that he’ll be evicted from his home just becausee some piece of paperwork shows it’s still in my late mother’s name. He can sometimes be bewildered, other times terrified.
I never know whether it’ll be a good day or a bad one. What kind of son will I need to be today? Organised? Attentive? Will I have to placate him, talk him down?
Ever since my mother died a month ago, I have been solely responsible for my 89year- old father. It has left me leading a split life: that of a loving husband, provider and father to my two children, who are 15 and 17, and also carer to my increasingly frail and grieving father.
Except my role as carer has, all too often, come first. It’s taken a hell of a toll on all of us and left me feeling trapped, claustrophic and, most of all, guilty.
As every husband and parent knows, family life is founded on routine. Children going to school, homework, dinners together. But how can I manage a normal existence when, increasingly, Dad’s needs are throwing a grenade into my life?
When catering to Dad’s many demands, I’m frequently neglecting my own family.
That’s why I’ve come to a decision. I’m going to have to put my family and my life first — and that will mean not always rushing to be there for Dad.
I’m under no illusions that this will only make me feel more guilt for neglecting him. But something’s got to give or I fear I might.
My father Leonard used to run an electrical business. Nowadays, he’s still largely compos mentis, yet increasingly frail. My younger brother lives in another country, so it’s all down to me.
Invariably, Dad’s moods sputter into anger before subsiding into helplessness, and I’m the only one he’ll accept help from.
The part-time carer I arranged for him a few weeks ago lasted just ten days, seen off by one of Dad’s rages because she was ‘ruining’ his life and, unfathomably, making the house dirtier.
He can’t cook. If I wasn’t there, he’d exist on cheese on toast and baked beans. He might occasionally manage to prise open a packet of smoked salmon and slip it onto bread. But that would be on a good day.
He has trouble walking around. Making his bed is an insurmountable physical challenge. The other day, I couldn’t work out why he was wearing slip-on sandals in October, until my wife, stunned by my stupidity, whispered that he was obviously having trouble putting his shoes on.
He can’t clean, do the washing or sort out the day-to-day necessities of life.
His mind is there, most of the time. But his aura — that all powerful, head- of-the-family sturdiness — has vanished.
I hadn’t anticipated that the most painful words I would hear from him would be: ‘Grant, whatever you say will be fine with me. You’re in charge now.’
For he was always Superman. I still remember, as a child, marvelling at his skill at flying a kite, high as the clouds. Or him in his brogues, sprinting past me as I swerved my way down the road on my first bike, and the 50 quid squeezed into my fist as I hopped on the train to university and Freshers’ Week.
The presence he had the moment he entered any room. Constantly shrouded in a cigarette haze, always impeccably dressed and polite. A giant to me back then. Now, sitting in the corner in his pyjamas, it is he who looks for strength in me.
I never thought the sense of crisis that’s enveloped our family would accelerate at such a pace.
Just a month ago, you see, my mother, Philippa, 80, was rushed to hospital with stomach pains and had a heart attack moments before an emergency operation. She died holding my father’s hand.
Mum hadn’t been in the best of health for some time. So three years ago, as she recovered from cancer, I made the decision to change my life to help my parents.
Instead of taking a highly paid job in the media, which would have entailed sharp- suited 60- hour weeks, I accepted the generous offer from a former colleague to help him part-time, allowing me to visit my parents whenever I needed to.
It also gave me the chance to launch my own consultancy — writing speeches for CEOs and executives. It was just enough compromise, I remember thinking, to enable me to ‘have it all’.
Have I regretted that decision to be a son instead of an executive? Every day. Whenever that feeling comes, a split-second later I berate myself for not realising how lucky I am. To have an inspiring job, alongside my own business, to be there for my dear old dad.
And yet, I’ve learned, trying to ‘have it all’ means you invariably feel as if you have nothing. Spread thin, you bounce between misplaced pride, guilt and resentment. For I am proud to be the person looking after Dad — yet bitterly resent it.
I know I should want to make supper for him instead of my own family, that I probably need to get a grip on his chaotic f i nances before my own, that I ought to feel obliged to spend hours talking about his past rather than my children’s future.
Yet I hate the fact that I have to. I resent that, suddenly, Dad has once again become the centre of my life.
I’m not alone in dealing with this. A recent survey showed that one in four people in their 40s and 50s are caring for their parents while also trying to support their children.
I’m sure many of those people deal with the burden of care with more magnanimity than I do. But I’m also certain that there must be a sizeable number feeling as I do: resentful, torn and overwhelmed. I even envy those who use the excuse of living too far from t their ageing parents to be able to help out — apparently, 60 per cent of all British children with elderly parents.
Instead, I’m just ten miles from Dad, who lives in North London. I see him three or four times a week, and it can be for hours at a time.
My family and friends, meanwhile, have been left to their own devices. I rarely sit down to dinner with my wife any more. Friends have grown exasperat perated at my inability (or unwillingness) to meet up.
Ik know my daughter would love me to spend time watching her perform ballet, rather than our only interactions being me losing my temper at her latest unsuitable purchase from Top Shop.
My son once had a dad who was ever present on the touchlines. This season I’ve seen him play football only once. Last week, I even forgot his 15th birthday. Without a panicked super- speedy delivery from Amazon, his big day would have gone unmarked as my wife, linchpin of the house, was temporarily away for work.
There’s countless other bits and pieces, the minutiae of family life, that I’ve neglected, too. When my wife was away last week, she asked me to do a few things. Book the Ocado shop, arrange my daughter’s pre-A-level parents’ evening, sort out a long-standing problem at the bank and plough on with the heap of ironing in the corner of the kitchen. Each one remained undone.
Then, last Saturday, I met up with my tennis partners for the regular game of doubles I’ve missed for the past six weeks. But rather than my backhand, the only thing I could think about was how I was abandoning my father.
Sunday lunch used to be the highlight of our family’s week. The gathering was boisterous, funny, argumentative, invigorating. It was part of the fabric of our lives.
Now, though, we jump in the car and have a stilted family meal with my dad in a soulless restaurant.
Then, in the week, when he calls me at 5.45am in a panic over the car insurance that is going to run out in 28 days or because he can’t find his will, I lift myself wearily from the bed, get dressed, kiss my slumbering family goodbye and make the dawn trek to the house I was brought up in. The exhaustion is like nothing I’ve ever experienced.
And there are more than 2.5 million British adult children of the elderly in the same situation.
But the ubiquity doesn’t make it any less significant. Physically and mentally drained, I am in danger of risking what I have for what I fear I’m about to lose.
What comes first: me or Dad? My family or Dad? My work or Dad? My sanity or Dad? I’m afraid things are going to have to change. Dad can no longer come first.
Of course, I shall ensure he is safe and cared for, but he cannot trump my life. Instead of racing round to see him at the drop of a hat, I’ll reassure him on the phone instead.
When the day arrives when he needs 24-hour help — and that can’t be far away — I will pay for it.
I’m going to make more of an effort at home, be more present for my children, more attentive to my wife.
Somehow, I’m not going to be overwhelmed by guilt about being a — not entirely, but increasingly — absent son.
Because I’ve got a life to lead, too.
‘What’s happened to the man I saw as Superman?’ ‘I was so tied up that I forgot my son’s birthday’