I have been checking in with my father almost every day since he was diagnosed with cancer late this spring. It seems like the least I can do. Sometimes we talk about cancer, sometimes we talk about work, sometimes we talk about movies, but mostly we talk about nothing in particular. And talking about nothing has been taking us at least 10 minutes almost every time we talk.
This is an impressive amount of time for me with a phone to my ear because talking on the phone is anathema to me. I’ve never been very good at it, and most of the time I can get a little short and just move quickly towards the hanging up part. I’m getting better, but I’m not cured. Yet.
A week or so ago, a friend of mine, Patti Dickinson, posted on her Facebook page an article in our local paper about the University of Missouri hiring a new person to help parents separate from their children as they enter the new world of living at college, or some such concept. I was disgusted that this was even a job that was needed at any university or college. There was much discussion on her page about how ridiculous this was, and I was in full agreement. Actually, I still am.
However, today something hit me. I have become a helicopter daughter. I am hovering around my father and checking in to make sure he is OK, adjusting and getting used to his new “environment”. I had become one of those dreaded people that can’t let their family out of their sight – or, in my case, hearing range.
At a time in my life when our son is entering his last four years of schooling before college and I am working hard at making sure he’s independent and capable and can troubleshoot some of his shortcomings, I am spending great amounts of time making sure my father is coping and is not overwhelmed by a bully he can’t even lay hands on directly.
Can I be a helicopter daughter while not being a helicopter parent? I think I can. We’ll see.
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I was working Convocation this weekend and one mother basically checked her daughter in, even spelling her name for me (as if either the daughter or I were going to have a hard time with “Barbara”). If you’re not yet spelling your father’s name for him, I think you’re good.
Ha!! Well I offer you this perspective… As one having
lost my mom to cancer 11 yrs ago, I do talk to my dad everyday!! But I’m not sure when that started, probably long before that. Consider it a privilege that you can talk to him and more importantly, that he will take your call 😉
Ha! He is lucky to have such great kids who care. And I hope you keep it up long after he whips this thing!!!
I guess maybe I was the landing pad. Daddy used to call me every morning just to say “Well kid, I,m still on deck!” God, how I miss those phone calls.
I would miss those calls, too. For several years after my grandmother died I would find myself picking up the phone to call her for a mundane bit of info – a cooking hint, a family secret, a memory – and would put the phone down slowly when it hit me that the only voice of hers I would ever hear again was in my own head. – sloane