by Lauren Randolph
I'm visiting for a few days. I wake up to the sound of the television. It's always on. I try to ignore it because I don't want to get up. But TV is a funny thing: If it's part of your life, it's easy to ignore, if you never watch it, impossible.
So I get up. My time with dad is short, so every minute is precious. Or should be.
I want the visit to be a certain way. I want to be able to relax and have fun with him, talk about stuff in my life that matters to me that he'll also care about and respond to. I want him to share the same kind of stuff from his life and perspective with me.
But that expectation always loads the situation too much. I tell myself I should just let the experience be what it is. But I can never seem to do that, no matter how aware of it I am.
Why should he always be the one to control the dynamic?
Control. Bookmark that thought.
Dad is eating his praline bran muffin with butter, exactly 7 grapes, a small glass of skim milk, and tea served in a ceramic mug his older sister made decades ago. He's watching Fox News and the continuous stock report. If it's a weekend, his routine varies only by what he watches: whatever golf tournament is on.
His inflexibility is a point of pride with him. He's often described himself as "being as weird as a three-dollar bill." It gives him security, too, since doing even simple things has become increasingly problematic as he's gotten older. In the past, I think it has also given him license to not take responsibility for his actions.
It's the ultimate karma come home to roost: For one who's done his best to control things his whole life, he's beginning to realize he can't control his decline. And it's scaring him to death. I think that accounts for why his world has narrowed so dramatically. The safe zone just keeps getting smaller and smaller.
He's had the same breakfast for years. When I was taking care of him for a few months after he had a debilitating fall last year, I tried to get him to vary his routine. I wanted to help him get better.
Or was I trying to control him? After all, given his age, what difference could it possibly make what kind of muffin he ate?
He was sort of receptive at first. Maybe he was playing nice because of what he assumed I'd given up for a time to come stay with him. But soon he insisted on the praline muffin. So I gave up buying anything else. That was one of many similar battles where he always seemed to get the better of me.
I get up, announce my presence with as lusty a "good morning" as I can manage, and move into the bathroom for a shower.
When I come out, he's still there in front of the TV. I get some coffee and sit down next to him on the couch. I start to read the newspaper. Dad calls it the Palm Beach Putz.
"Oh, did you see the front-page article ab…?" I begin to ask.
"GE stock is up a penny," says dad.
…
I can never figure out how to communicate with him to get his attention. I generally incline to the superficial because his attention span is so short. He may listen, but he rarely responds as if he's actually processed the information. He seems hardly interested in anything.
It feels as if we're playing ping pong. He's always a step ahead because he knows where he's sending the ball, and I'm always a few seconds away from failing to return it because I can't keep up.
It seems so pointless to me to play this game. I don't want to keep up. I want to communicate with him on my own terms, those that feel good and satisfying. I'm tired of feeling as if I always give in to his needs.
Dad gets up to take the first of four daily 25-minute walks.
He seems to have a lot of restless energy that resonates badly with my own. I think that's why it's so hard to be around it.
He walks out the door. I debate turning off the television but don't want him to think I've made a "statement" about it. Read, write, regroup, relax.
Back he comes.
I try again.
"Dad, what do you think ab…?"
"Oh, GE stock is down a penny.
…
"Up a penny."
…
"Down a penny."
It feels as if I'm watching someone go weigh themselves every few minutes. What difference could a penny possibly make? Yet it gives him a place to hang onto reality.
We leave for lunch at 11:20 so we can be there at 11:30. The appointed hour. But, as far as I can tell, it doesn't matter, except to dad.
We each order a glass of chardonnay. Luckily, he's stopped requesting the "cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap chardonnay," or maybe now he reserves that for restaurants in town that we hardly ever venture out to.
The wait staff plays along because they're nice people. Dad also needs a side glass of ice. They remember that, even before he asks. That's the benefit of belonging to a club where they know you. Security.
I drink to cope. If I don't join him in a glass of wine, he'll comment. If I drink more than he does, he'll comment. Either way disparagingly.
He claims I don't have a sense a humor. I think his humor often has an edge of mean spiritedness.
Dad orders the "salad trio" but in his case it's chicken salad, chicken salad, and chicken salad with cole slaw on the side. Always the same.
My order varies, which makes it, oddly, less interesting, because the experience with him is always about negating my own needs and trying to please him. Peace at any price, even if the cost is intense rage inside. That's what my mother taught us. In her case, I think it led to an early death.
We eat, chat with bartenders, waiters, and waitresses we know – they're the best part of the meal – then we go home.
….
Dad goes out for another walk. I turn on my soap opera "Days of Our Lives," which I've watched on and off for the past 40 years. This is my place to hang onto reality. Maybe this is just as bad an addiction. But at least it has a plot with good actors rather than people screaming at each other from the floor of the stock exchange.
Amazingly, some of the characters are still part of the story line and, more amazingly, played by the same people I remember when I started watching at age 13. This comes as a worthwhile distraction. Either that or I take a nap. The energy here is a downer.
…
5:00 PM rolls around. Shall we have a cocktail or wait until we go to the (same) club? Seems safer to wait.
Tonight I've planned a surprise birthday party for him. It's his 85th birthday. Part of the rationale for my coming into town.
It's a Monday – BBQ night at the club. That's typically a very popular event. For Florida, it's a surprisingly cold evening, so everyone's inside, making it abnormally crowded and noisy in the dining room. We have a long table along one side.
I wanted to do a low-key surprise, so I suggested that everyone I invited just meet us there. Given their ages – some are in their mid-90s – they arrive in batches, so dad slowly gets the idea about the party. We order drinks, eat peanuts, talk, get up to do the buffet.
…"She's going into rehab, you know." I hear this as I'm passing through the dining room back to the table. Probably someone from my generation, I think, judging by the age of the fellow talking.
… "So, Stephie, is that your 3rd or 4th drink?" asks dad.
…
I tell dad my intention is to pay for the dinner…
"Don't be stupid; of course you're not paying for dinner," he says.
When I tell him I intend to send the amount of the bill to the club's business office, he really gets agitated. I nearly have him. Could he stop them from cashing my check? I'm sure that's going through his mind.
That's another form of control he uses. Over who's spending the money.
I had thought my offer would be received as a gracious gesture.
But money is the source of power and importance. He's always paid. It must be an odd experience – emasculating? – for him to realize at some level that I can afford to pay. I guess he didn't bargain that a girls' boarding school education was a big step towards empowerment for all three of his daughters.
He certainly hasn't wanted the power balance between us ever to change. That's why he keeps such a tight rein on this situation.
He makes me feel like I'm still too young and insignificant to be able to afford such a dinner. Like I still haven't grown up. Like I should be taken care of by the man.
But I've never been taken care of by the man. I've always made more money than any man I was involved with.
If he knew that, he'd probably admire but hate me for it. Like I should have known better than to break that rule. What manners.
"Shut up," I say, finally letting him have it. I figure it's time I start expressing my own needs. I'm surprised at the outburst. I'm just as surprised that he hardly notices.
Especially when, after visits in which I've sworn in front of the relatives or had one too many glasses of wine by his peculiar accounting, he didn't speak to me for weeks and it took me that amount of time to figure out the problem. In the latter case, he and his girlfriend left the table and went home without telling me that's what they were doing. I was left at the end of the dinner with people I hardly knew trying to explain why I preferred to walk home.
"Are you alright?" asks Geri, the dining room hostess that dad and I have known for years and with whom I set up the special arrangements for the surprise party. I'm sure she's seen worse. What can I say? Yes, I want to deck him. Maybe she does too.
"Thanks, I'm fine."
She nods and backs away.
Cake is served. It's surprisingly good. It has toasted coconut on top – dad's favorite, just as I ordered. They have a new chef, and I can see evidence of his influence on the menu. Thank goodness dad doesn't complain about the calories.
We get home.
I'm pissed.
I change my clothes immediately to take a walk around the compound.
I cry the whole way around. 45 minutes.
When I get back, dad's mystified: Why am I upset?
I want to say "fuck you."
Then I think: How much time do you have, dad? If your attention span were longer than 10 seconds, I'd share some real stuff with you…
That's what I want to say. But what's the point? It will never penetrate.
How much energy do I have to devote to this matter?
Apparently, a lot because the real question is: How much energy have I devoted to hating – and tolerating – his behavior over the course of my life?
So I take a stab at honesty and I tell him I'm angry because of his rudeness and bullying. When he inevitably tries to turn this into something about him, I remind him that I'm angry because it's about ME. He leaves in a huff and slams his bedroom door.
I guess neither of us has ever grown up.
I lie awake for hours and finally cry myself to sleep. I'd bought an alarm clock that day and wasn't sure I'd gotten it to work properly, so I hardly sleep because I don't want to miss my flight. That would be worse.
The alarm clock goes off, 30 minutes before I have to leave at 6AM. I kiss dad goodbye. He says he loves me in a vague semi-asleep way, and I tell him the same.
What next?
Do I ever want to see him again? Yes, no, yes, no…
For sure I'm never coming alone again to visit. That always makes our dynamic together worse and, frankly, leaves me feeling more frustrated. I have less of an escape.
Should I stay in a hotel next time? Yes.
Dad is too old for me to try to change his behavior. He is what he is. That's what my sisters would say. They're right of course. Deep swallow.
I'm not about to change either.
It's scary and humbling how alike we are.
I want my contact with him to be so different.
I always have.
But I can't seem to figure out how to change the dynamic.
I sometimes wonder whether I look for opportunities to be mad at him because that allows me to distance myself from him, the mirror image of myself. I think he uses other techniques to keep me at a distance.
He leaves me a check for $2,000 to cover my expenses. I suppose that's his generation's way of showing love and appreciation that I came to visit.
But my expenses amount to about $350. I feel like a whore taking it. Like it's payment for his bad behavior. And reinforcing the sense that he can pay for his bad behavior and something I somehow still can't afford.
But I can, I tell myself. I can.
But he's not about to accept that.
But what about his bad behavior? We still have no transaction for that.