Glimpse of Freedom for Me

Today I passed a milestone. I took my dad to visit an assisted living facility.

People in my shoes refer to assisted living facilities as “ALF’s,” so I will do the same.

Back in September, I checked out a few places because I knew my dad’s condition was going to force him out of the house before long. I went to several places in the Ocala area, and I also visited one farther south. I learned a lot. None of the places I visited were bedlam-style asylums, but I saw that the system was tiered. The bottom tier is somewhat grubby. The top tier is made up of resorts that would be fine places for able people to visit, were the old people to be cleared away.

I thought my best bet was the top tier. The nicest place I visited was beautiful. It has very high ceilings, lots of windows, and an abundance of new paint and tile. It seemed to be run well. I felt that a person of my dad’s means, accomplishments, and social standing might be best served by an institution of this grade.

ALF’s are divided into sections for advanced dementia patients and individuals who are merely old and in need of some help. The main sections are a lot like retirement communities, except there is more of a communal atmosphere. They have common rooms for things like TV, reading, and puzzles, and they have dining halls. The memory care areas are less like apartment buildings and more like hospitals. If my experience is any indication, they are more likely to smell.

The worst place I visited was the memory care section of a lower-tier facility. The inhabitants were in a bad way. The attendants were busier than they were in the main area, because they had to watch the patients constantly. It was more closed off than the main area, because the patients had to be confined for their own good. My dad doesn’t need that level of care yet, thank God.

I called around this week, and I decided to take another look at the second-nicest ALF, which is close by. It’s not as new or fancy as the ritzy place down south, but the people are very nice, and it’s easy to get to if I want to take him to lunch or a doctor’s appointment.

It’s better than I remembered. The dining room, in particular, made a good impression. It looks like a restaurant. They have nice furniture, tablecloths, and waiters. When mealtimes roll around, he can plop down and boss people around, ordering whatever he wants as long as it’s on the menu. I wouldn’t mind eating there myself. It would be more convenient than doing dishes.

The rooms are nice. They’re just like hotel rooms. He would have a fridge and a giant TV. One nice thing about it is that they don’t have DirecTV, which is what he has now. Don’t listen to Rob Lowe. DirecTV is a nightmare. It’s torture even for a person of sound mind. The system is maddeningly slow, most of the channels are pay-per-view or shopping channels, the receivers have to be cycled over and over because they quit, and the picture disappears when it rains hard. The ALF has a normal cable system with 80 channels.

I can’t tell you how many times my dad has bellowed for immediate help with DirecTV. We had two sessions today, and one lasted about 15 minutes.

The more I think about it, the more I think it will work. The nicer place is nicer, but the half-hour drive would be a nuisance. If he goes to the ALF we visited today, it will be no trouble at all to visit him or take him out to do things. That’s a huge plus, because his main gripe is the he won’t see me as much. He doesn’t say it, but I know.

I can understand why he’s upset. If I had a son who jumped up and catered to my unreasonable whims seven days a week, day and night, I would want him around, too. I hope there is more to it than that, but in any case, I am a gigantic convenience to him.

I don’t care if he’s here nearly every day, as long as I can take him back in the afternoons. The ability to dump him and go home and clean up and sleep, all by itself, is worth the cost of the ALF. Until today, I had been thinking of ALF’s as places where people become separated from relatives and go on to live separate lives, but I have realized that it doesn’t have to work that way. You can use an ALF as a place to deposit a parent most of the time, to preserve your sanity, while taking him out regularly to keep him from feeling abandoned.

I don’t know how hard it is to put up with a routine of checking a parent out and taking him back. Maybe it’s too stressful for them. I hope not. You don’t want to jam someone into a home and then wait at a distance while he dries up and dies.

The cost is not that bad. Somewhere in the thirties. Obviously, we have to spend whatever is appropriate, but money is money, and getting good value for what you spend is always a blessing. The general rule in life is that one does not want to spend more than one takes in, and if one can observe that rule even in retirement, without cutting corners, it’s a great thing.

He is still unhappy about the ALF plan, but as of the moment, he is willing to do it. He has to do it, so he needs to adjust. Things are going to get worse and worse. It’s not like his doctor is going to give him a pill next year, cure his dementia, and turn him into Brad Pitt. He is going to have to have an ALF. Before long, he’ll have to move to the memory care section of an ALF. I don’t really know what comes after that. Maybe it’s the last stop. Anyway, he keeps saying he doesn’t like it, but often you have to shut up about what you like and choose from what’s available. When he was drafted, he didn’t get to stay home because he didn’t like it. You make tough choices, or someone makes them for you.

I’ll send him for a short stay when I travel this month, and we’ll see what he thinks. If he likes it, we can sign him up, and then we’ll be all set. Afterward, I’ll spend several days dancing in the front yard. The house will be clean. I’ll be able to have a coherent thought once in a while. I’ll still be able to see my dad, but I’ll be able to send him back to his comfy room (which someone else cleans up) before the sun gets low in the sky.

I won’t have to do 10 extra loads of laundry every week. I’ll be able to use the refigerator in the kitchen instead of the special, clean, locked fridge in the laundry room. I’ll be able to sit in the living room instead of hiding upstairs. The inside of the car won’t have to be cleaned with bleach and disinfectant wipes all the time. I won’t have to sit in the upstairs room cringing as I listen to the sound of him blowing his nose over and over on the living room floor. I may not be able to stand the freedom.

I could conceivably have a guest. I could get on a plane and visit someone. I remember doing things like that.

My dad likes to nag me about marriage. The other day I told him no woman would move into this house with me with things as they were. He said she could take over cleaning up after him. He really said that.

Truthfully, I am not interested in romance with women in my age group. I feel like I missed the marriage boat. I’ve seen my dad surrounded with the paraphernalia of old age and decrepitude, and I am not eager to start a marriage with a woman who already has the starter kit. It’s one thing to marry a young woman and get old with her. It’s another thing to start out with a first wife who reminds you of the time your grandmother forgot to close the door while she was getting dressed for church. With sex and reproduction off the table, I’d be better off splitting a house with a close male friend. We would have the same tastes in everything, and each of us would have someone close by in case he had a heart attack or a stroke.

When you live with another man, you never get the silent treatment because you used the special decorative soap or said you didn’t want to go to the cat show. You don’t have to ask if it’s okay to spend $1500 on a third rifle in the same caliber. You don’t have to tell people they don’t look fat when they are clearly obese. Another man will never say nice things to you and then stare at you, waiting for you to say the same things back even though you don’t mean them.

Another nice thing about men is that they forgive, for real. We are too lazy to carry grudges. I would say maybe 20% of women are able to forgive.

Men who live together don’t have to recycle or eat salad. Cans, bottles, newspapers, batteries, motor oil…it all goes in the kitchen trash, and you never have to eat arugula.

I think men and women look at marriage very differently. A woman can be very happy with a man who is completely unattractive, as long as he gives her financial security and a face to talk to. Men are not wired for that kind of relationship. Women, to be honest, are a pain to put up with as live-in companions. You have to have something beyond friendship to make it work. Romance helps you forget the sacrifices and annoyances. It can even make the irritations seem charming.

Women are harder to get along with than men, and that’s why they can’t stand each other. Men would feel the same way about women, but for romance.

I can write these things because I’m not married. If I had a wife, I’d have to sleep in a hotel tonight. Even though I’m right.

To get back to the point, I feel that my dad was mistaken to hope that a woman would marry me and then cheerfully assume all responsibility for his messes. I don’t think that kind of assumption has been reasonable since about 1750.

If things work out, I may have something resembling a life by the end of January. It may be a permanently celibate life in a house with no pictures on the walls and no special decorative soaps, but I expect to enjoy it all the same.