Monday, November 07, 2011

My dad can’t see.  It dawned on me today.  This man can hardly see.  I imagine most of us, if having to choose a sense to lose, vision would be one we would dearly hang on to.  I think my dad would agree.

Daddy has Macular Degeneration.  Don’t ask me what it is, I have been living in Atlanta, far removed, and haven’t bothered myself to learn what Macular Degeneration is.  Whatever it is, it was recently diagnosed in his other eye. 

If my uninterested mind recalls correctly, MD means one loses one’s central vision – peripheral vision is all that remains.  If this is correct, then on my computer screen I would not be able to recognize this Word document, but I “may” see the tool bar.  My computer would become useless to me.

Today I visited Verizon to see what they had in a SENIOR phone.  Their Haven didn’t quite cut it.  And just not for my dad – his vision needs are a bit different – but for Seniors in general I would think it poor. 

The Haven phone was not much bigger than your typical flip phone.  Nor were the number keys.  Nor was the screen…but I will say that the contrast between the XL words and background was much better than their typical phone.  Still it was not helpful for Dad.

I looked on line at the Jitterbug but until I actually see it, I can’t tell if it is just another Haven.  Plus, mom and dad get the most benefit from a pay-as-you-go plan and that didn’t seem available from Jitterbug.

Innovators who are reading – my mom and dad both would buy a flip phone the size of a deck of cards (unflipped) or bigger to be able to SEE the phone and its messages.

Dad today said to mom he thought his newspaper reading days were nearly over.  This coming from a man who hovers a 2X lighted magnifying glass over the top of a 4X glass to read the paper while wearing a head lamp.  I can’t bear this.

I Googled anything I could find and now have an email in to an optics company who sells head lamps combined with magnifying glasses.  Even if daddy needs one for reading the newspaper and another one for working on his cars, he may get something that helps much more and luckily he is already used to this fashion statement.    

We have long ago given up on dad and fashion.  I have been doing his laundry for a few months and the highlight is what article of dad’s clothing has worn out and I can throw away?  His attire is jeans (ratty), sweat or T shirts (ratty) with or without a coverall (ratty, unless it is the red one he saves for special occasions).  Sometimes he wears a cap (ratty) or sweatband or both.  I USE BLEACH.  It doesn’t matter.  Like Pigpen of the old Peanuts Comic Strip, dad simply attracts a cloud of dirt.  And during Hay Fever Season like now, his face is just as attractive.

.

We needed to leave at 6:15pm to make it to our ladies club wine tasting – the one meeting a year where we can invite the husbands.  At 5:30 I asked mom how much time dad needed to get ready.  She said about a half an hour.  With 30 minutes to spare I went downstairs into daddy’s work room and said it was time to get ready to go.  Ten minutes later, dad walks into the kitchen – in his underwear (whitey tighties) – asking mom if “these slacks are blue or black?”

I noticed his face was still black and his hair, even though it was 6:00pm, was still in “bed” state.

“Dad?” I asked, “Have you felt the spray of water on your body recently?”  He and mom both cannot tell if the slacks are blue or black.  I get no reply.

“Dad? Are you going to shower?”

The slacks are black it is decided.

“I showered yesterday,” he says.  Annoyed.

Now the slacks are blue mom says.

Dad reappears in nice clothes, Khaki slacks, his face washed, hair dandified and engulfed in cloud of Nautica that mom just bought him.

Again, imagine Pigpen and his cloud….that is daddy tonight and his cologne.

I’m driving us to the party.  Something under my hood is burning…it smells like burning rubber.  I start to worry. 

“Dad?” I ask, “do you smell that burning rubber smell?”

“Lori,” he says, “all I can smell is myself.”

We all cracked up.