My dad's internet is unstable, says ZOOM as it kicks him off again. He has contacted tech support at his care facility, and we're hoping to resolve this soon. We can't play Bridge until then.
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Meanwhile at school, our tech team is a host of angels: patient godsends at the ready when frazzled teachers call with wifi trouble, missing passwords, microphone and server issues. They gently ask if we've tried restarting our computers. This fixes 50% of our problems.
As challenging as it must be to help teachers with tech, I can only imagine what it's like to guide nonagenaries through their computer woes.
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A few days ago I had to talk my dad onto his Gmail account after Google changed the "Look for the red M on the white box!" to its new multi-colored logo.
I myself have had to rescan my open tabs because my reptilian brain keeps searching for the red M on the white envelope. I do think I'll survive this change, but I'm not sure my dad can make the leap.
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My parents made a valiant attempt to learn the new technology of the Internet in their seventies. Like my mother-in-law, they fought past fear of change to learn computer skills when many of their peers simply bowed out.
But 15 years in, these determined lifelong learners are struggling.
My mother no longer uses the computer at all. My dad calls her over to the screen when we Zoom. I then ask him to adjust the angle of the computer camera so I can see more than just my mom's forehead. He struggles, but manages to do this. She looks happy--and surprised--when we see each other.
Meanwhile, my mother-in-law continues to email and use search engines deftly. She has not advanced to the Zoom world, but this is due more to her phobia of looking at herself in photos or on screen than because of tech deficiency.
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When I took my mother-in-law to the dentist for root-canal a few weeks ago, I was unnerved by how the doctor talked to her as if she were a child, with a cloying tone and slow, simplified language. Fortunately, he caught on quickly that the woman in the dental chair maintained her faculties and could handle an adult conversation.
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When I talk to my dad, I do not treat him as a child. But when I am moving him through tech instructions, I simplify everything; I slow my pace. I add a conscious layer of patience.
I can do this because I am his daughter. I know the person he is now may be befuddled and slow. But that person also houses decades of decency, intelligence, and patience with others. Whoever he is now still deserves respect.
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Until this year, I have not thought deeply about geriatrics. Frankly, I didn't think much about aging at all, except in that mildy narcissistic way of wishing my eyebrows wouldn't sprout wild gray hairs.
My COVID months with my parents have me reconsidering life's waning years. I have new appreciation for the cultures that honor the elderly and elevate them for their cumulative life's contribution.
How do we treat people in their final years of life? What does that say about us?
Enough.
Be well.
Write.
Allison
Andrea is taking Wolf on his first
airplane adventure to Christchurch to
visit her dear friend Grace.
NZ is a world model of COVID control.
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