It’s Obviously Not About the Screwdrivers - How Making My Dad Feel Needed Can Shift His Mood

My dad is 95. I remember thinking 30 seemed old. He’s safe and cared for but he’s slipping and there’s nothing either of us can do about it. I don’t know if he’s aware of the delusional stuff he says. I really hope not. 

When I think about my dad I think of a guy who could fix any problem in our 150+ year old house, the grungier and more complex the better. He didn’t need to call ‘the guy’ to fix the problem, he was the guy. 

As soon as he’d fixed one thing, invariably something else would go wrong and he’d get that smile on his face, head down to his workroom in the basement and get lost in the project. 

He has always had a need to move around, fix things, feel needed. Today he’s living in a beautiful place that doesn’t need any fixing and it clearly pisses him off.

My heart aches for him when he’s in this loop of anxiety and frustration. It’s not that he can’t make me crazy, because he absolutely can, but lately I miss the guy who could fix anything, who found joy in repurposing an old dishwasher utensil strainer into a holder for his many screwdrivers. So today when he was pissy and frustrated I asked if I could borrow a screwdriver from his workroom to fix my desk upstairs. 

“Sure. You know your mother wanted to throw away that old utensil holder but I knew I could find a use for it. It holds all the screwdrivers and it has a handle so you can take it upstairs with you. Pretty smart, huh?” 

And just like that his mood shifted. I could hear him smile on the other end of the phone. He could still help, he felt needed, he could still be that guy. 

Photo by Todd Quackenbush on Unsplash