I Didn’t Need a Coping Plan Until My Parents Became Elderly: Chapter Two

From the Caregiver

People keep telling me they “enjoyed” Chapter One, which is a weird thing to hear about a document that contains equal parts grief, logistics, and coffee-fueled spiritual resilience.

Still, here we are.

Quick update from the field: Dad is eighty-one. The stroke happened in October. He is still very smart, very funny, very stubborn, and very convinced that the rest of us are dramatically overreacting to what he calls “a few minor filing errors in the brain department.”

Those filing errors now include forgetting conversations while still winning arguments about them.

From the Father

I would like to object to this narrative.

First, I am not “resistant.” I am “selective.”

Second, people keep trying to enroll me in systems. Home care system. Meal system. Medication system. “Would you consider assisted living?” system.

I already live in assisted living. I have children.

From the Caregiver

We are currently running a distributed care model, which is a formal way of saying: everybody is helping from too far away.

Dad lives in Grande Prairie. My sibling and I live in the Edmonton area, about five hours away if the roads behave. We coordinate neighbors, friends, calls, medication reminders, grocery drops, and increasingly elaborate sticky-note architecture.

The sticky notes are thriving. The humans are mixed.

From the Father

Meals on Wheels arrives five days a week.

I did not request this. I did not approve this. I do not appreciate strangers handing me soup like I’m in a Victorian novel.

Also, they keep bringing vegetables with opinions.

My caregiver says, “You don’t have to eat all of it.” This is true. I can simply complain first and then eat most of it, which is my current compromise with modernity.

From the Caregiver

Dad says he wants to “downsize,” which in principle sounds productive.

In practice, this means he decides at 9:40 p.m. that he is going to sell half the house online, opens three browser tabs, forgets why they’re open, finds an old socket wrench, and announces he is launching “a digital estate transition operation.”

The operation usually ends when he can’t remember a password and declares capitalism broken.

He is not wrong about capitalism. He is wrong about being able to run an e-commerce exit strategy solo right now.

From the Father

I know exactly how to sell things online.

You take a picture. You write a description. You post it.

Apparently there are now steps involving accounts, verification codes, payment settings, and something called “two-factor authentication,” which sounds less like technology and more like couples therapy.

Also, my phone keeps asking me if I am a robot. At this stage I find that accusatory.

From the Caregiver

There is a specific heartbreak to this season: watching someone remain intellectually sharp in flashes while losing functional traction in the ordinary flow of a day.

He can still analyze politics, economics, and the failures of municipal planning with doctoral precision.

Then he cannot remember whether he has eaten lunch.

He can still tell a story from 1978 with scene-level detail, weather included.

Then he forgets why he’s holding the TV remote and points it at a lamp.

He is not faking this. He is not lazy. He is in a maze that rearranges itself while he’s inside it.

From the Father

Everyone keeps saying “write things down.”

I would love to. My writing has changed since the stroke. Sometimes the words don’t come out in a way I can use later.

So now people suggest voice notes. Fine. I made one yesterday.

The note says: “Remember the thing about the thing before the appointment.”

Excellent. Fully actionable.

From the Caregiver

We are trying to bring in more support. He is resistant to home care. Resistant to the idea of a lodge. Resistant to anything that sounds like loss of autonomy.

Which, to be fair, is exactly what it feels like to him.

So we are not forcing every decision all at once. We are building tolerance in small moves: one visit, one check-in, one routine at a time.

And yes, we are getting a doctor back into the loop again, because the talking-in-circles has increased and we need updated clinical eyes on what’s changing.

From the Father

I do not talk in circles.

I talk in spirals.

Circles return to the same point. Spirals expand.

You’re welcome.

From the Caregiver

There is one part I don’t joke about.

Sometimes Dad talks about not wanting to be here anymore. He has said versions of that for years, often as frustration language, but we treat it seriously every single time. We check directly, we stay present, and we involve professional support when needed.

Dark humor helps us survive. It does not replace safety.

Both can be true.

From the Father

I am angry sometimes. I am sad sometimes. Sometimes I perform both like a one-man theater festival.

But I am still here.

And for the record, I still know things. Important things. The names of my kids. The sound of their laughter. Who keeps showing up.

From the Caregiver

This is the part people don’t put on the brochure:

Caregiving is part medicine, part administration, part improv comedy, part crisis response, part grief, and part remembering to buy printer ink for the label maker at 10:15 p.m.

We’re not doing it perfectly. We’re doing it repeatedly.

Which, at this stage, might be the same thing.

End of Chapter Two.