Enemy #1-The Telephone

When I was 15 years old my father gave me an egg timer to help me shorten my telephone calls. He was never a big fan of long phone conversations and hated that I stayed on the phone almost every night with my school friends. To be fair, I think I was like every other teenage girl of the time--we reviewed and replayed everything that happened in school during the day and planned the next day, on the phone. The egg timer became a family joke when I would turn it over at least ten times during each call--Dad knew it was a losing battle and just smiled.

Now, I would love to use that timer again. The phone calls from my uncle are painful. He has lost so much physical strength within the last 3 months that it has broken his spirit. He has become a whimpering, weak, sad shadow of his former self. The calls are usually filled with complaints of nurses or aides not attending to his needs properly or quickly enough, or distress about physical maladies that are magnified by too much time on his hands and complete immersion in his diminishing abilities. I completely understand and sympathize with his sadness and depression (he refuses to take anti-depressants --or mind-bending drugs as he calls them, because he doesn't want to lose mental clarity). I am just at a loss for easing the miserable state of being completely cognizant of your frailties without solutions to the problem. The calls are long and agonizing, with my own helplessness to fix things running rampant.

Phase two of the same day also comes in the form of the calls from my mother as I've described before--she's unhappy with being in a nursing facility, she's lonely, and now, always "losing" something. Sometimes I'm able to help her locate the missing object and sometimes just talking about life outside the walls of the nursing home lift her spirits. Sometimes I can visit and take her outside or out to lunch, though she often seems a little fearful of leaving the environment she's accustomed to. The catch 22 for me is the ways to ease her boredom also yield a certain amount of angst for her. The larger dilemma lies in trying to be more than I am. I am not a doctor or psychologist. I am just a daughter trying to ease the complicated state in my mother's aging.

I have now dreamed of the 3 minute phone call. Maybe Dad was on to something. If I could keep each phone call to only 3 minutes, my frustration with just being a sounding board for all the difficulties of growing old would be under control. If I could just be the voice they both need to hear so they know that someone is listening to them that might work.

There are those who age so gracefully and who are fortunate enough to maintain good health, eyesight and mental capacity. Then there are countless others who languish in the grey zone between vibrant life and the great beyond. The latter seek counsel in so many ways. The phone becomes the single lifeline that connects between the two worlds. I guess I'm just the lucky one who is at the end of that line for my mom and uncle. Sometimes I'm honored to give them a little of what they need, but sometimes I just wish I had an egg timer!