Nadine Williams

My father Frank

When he fell in the street in the middle of a heat-wave knocking himself unconscious, the process to have him admitted to low care began – and proceeded quickly because of his disabilities – he was deaf and blind and unsafe on his own.

This is a story many boomer children will be living right now and it is like handing the baton of life backwards – back to us because we are now responsible for our ageing parents.

So it was that for the past two days, we have travelled to Renmark to take dad to see about his hearing loss and try and improve his eye-sight. He uses a magnifying glass and his daily joy in his spacious room is painstakingly reading the newspaper, which takes him until lunchtime.

His lack of ability to connect through language was painfully obvious at the recent funeral of his wife, Elizabeth, my step-mother.

Dad was grief-stricken at losing “my girl’’, but my siblings and I noticed that he could not hear a word and sang his hymns out of sync (although he insisted on giving his own eulogy from the pulpit – when he gave an incredible testament to his happy second marriage). He had married her when he was 81 and they enjoyed a 10 year marriage, eight of them in their SA Housing Trust attached unit.

We wanted dad to hear better and I took him to Renmark’s Community Care where Jessica, the young audiologist from Adelaide, sorted out his problem.  He must wear TWO hearing aids and the nurses MUST change the batteries each fortnight.  However, Jessica is to apply for latest technology available on Medicare for dad which will improve his hearing for one-to-one interaction. This is dad’s life now. With his hearing aids inserted with fresh batteries, Dad was like a child being given a  lollypop.  He had simply given up on hearing aids because he couldn’t handle the batteries and thought they made no difference.

He talks like a parrot, despite deafness, about the “olden days’’, losing his life-long mates “they all went between ages of 70 and 77, so I’m a lucky old bugger’’,  his friendship with Renmark butcher Colin Lindner (the brother of ex North
Adelaide footy star Don Lindner), the 13 grandchildren, footy (the Crows)  and how blessed he has been in his long life.  And here is the lesson. It seems his is such a narrow life compared with the busyness of our contemporary world, but my dad is a happy soul. To be around him is  a huge boost as he calls me “My sweet No. 1.  daughter’’, and other sweet platitudes.  My heart swells in love for him, and that old, yet familiar feeling of protection when I was a mother of young children – of caring for someone vulnerable, wells up in me.

I feel emotionally enriched being around him and giving back to him what he needs – plenty of loving kindness.

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Dad’s improvement in weight and wellbeing is testament to the fact that in some cases, institutionalised care is a much better option for aged, frail people whom we love. We know, for most residents in aged care facilities, they are cared for and are safe. My siblings and I and our spouses know from the sad state of dad’s little unit, that he was beyond caring for himself because of his handicaps.  Now he lives in a pristine room with a big en-suite and double doors lead out to his private veranda.

Where there are no newspapers near the gas stove to create danger for a visually impaired nonagenarian.

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