The Haunting of Old Age

My father is 89 years old.  His wife, my mother, died almost a decade ago.  All of his friends are now gone. 

He never was much for social communications, although when he is with people, he is gregarious as they come.

But he has decided that he will die in his home; at least that is his current desire.

What little desire he still expresses.

He is hopelessly lonely, and dementia is creeping in, silent and haunting every day, every evening, every sensory deprived morning.  He forgets one day to the next, sometimes the whole day.

I go down there more than I ever thought I would.  You see, my father can be abusive, especially as the dementia seeps further into his aging consciousness.  He will rage from time to time, from loneliness and from paranoid dementia.  

Most of it seems, when I am not so angry at him I can hardly speak, to be a creeping sense that he no longer has control of much of anything.  He seems to be sensing that he has no control of events, of family, of his own life.  

For some reason, this always has been very important to my father, the sense that somehow he can control people, events.  He always has been a control freak. 

My father was a leader.  He didn't go very far, he was a manager in a car dealership's shop  for most of his working life.  He only had a high school education, but is far more capable than that. 

He was caught in the Great Depression and like many of that time, had to settle for eking out a living the best he could.  He worked on section gangs, on the Central Valley Project, then settled into a journeyman mechanic position, and stayed with that the rest of his life. 

He can fix anything, something I, a Stanford graduate with a M.A., cannot even come close to doing.

But old age haunts him.  I don't know really at this point, where is is with his faith.  Sometimes I think he is at peace with God, then the paranoia comes in, the rants, and we all have to start over again.

He is in pain, he is miserable, and he is not happy.  But, he lives on, alone. 

We have arranged for In Home Health Services to help him, with cleaning the house, meals, and such.  They are in the home three days a week.  I am trying to get someone in the house every day.  This is especially important since his dementia seems to spike, some days it is really bad, and I am worried that he might hurt himself.

The Doctor has told him not to drive, but his still has his license.   We all have warned him not to drive anymore.  He forgot how to turn on the car lights a month ago.  He is a mechanic!

He rails at the sunset, he rails at the sunrise.  His soul at times seems tortured, haunted by the demons of pain, old age, and knowing that almost all that he loved is gone. 

He gripes that his grand kids won't come see him, but then when they do, he goes off on them, and they leave often after an argument.

I am trying to at least plant the seed that he might be more happy in a senior living environment, to be around people.  But, every time I bring it up, he talks about the "homes" of the Great Depression, when the elderly were literally left to rot in squalor.   So that is out.

As I watch, and try to help, in between periods of hoping he passes on, I am haunted by the chance that I may be looking at myself in 20 years or so; an old man alone, snapping at life like a wounded animal, hopelessly unhappy and lonely.  I don't want to wait to die like that.

The haunting of old age.