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Is There an Upside to Being a Caregiver?
After my Dad died within months of my retirement, I wanted to kill my mother
Hopefully, my mom will never read this story. I am confident she won't, as she does not have a smartphone, laptop, or tablet. She fears technology. It's one of the things that pisses me off about her.
She won't even try. Why should she try when my Dad did everything for her? For sixty-six years of marriage, he spoiled and enabled her. And now he's dead, and it falls on me. My mom is 91 but is very much "with it" regarding cognitive function for her age.
I’m not asking her to write code, but I’m also not exaggerating when I tell people that she doesn’t know how to use the remote control for the smart TV. She never used a debit card or an ATM, changed the time on a clock, switched out alkaline batteries, or made a pot of coffee. "Your father did all that," she says sheepishly, waving it off. Essentially, she becomes a prisoner of her own ignorance once Dad is gone. She maintains, “He never showed me how to do anything” I believe, she never wanted to learn.
I was only two weeks into my retirement when I received the phone call that my Dad was in the hospital. My parents lived in an apartment about an hour and a half away. The drive was not bad, but it soon became a chore when…
